American soldiers stand near military trucks, at al-Omar oil field in Deir Al Zor, Syria March 23. REUTERS/Rodi Said
Robin Wright, New Yorker: How Trump Betrayed the General Who Defeated ISIS
The Islamic State has finally fizzled. Its caliphate, daringly declared from the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, in Iraq, in 2014, had been the size of Britain, ruled eight million people, lured recruits from eighty countries, and threatened to redraw the map of the Middle East. It ended, in the Syrian farming hamlet of Baghouz, as little more than a junk yard about the size of Central Park, filled with burnt-out vehicles and dilapidated tents. Tens of thousands of ISIS loyalists, both fighters and their families, opted to surrender—and face life in crammed prisons and dreary detention camps—rather than become martyrs in ISIS’s promised paradise.
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WNU Editor: Betrayal is a harsh word. Everyone knew (and knows) that the U.S. will not stay permanently in Syria, including the Kurds and their allies. The fact that almost 1,000 U.S. soldiers still remain in Syria, and probably will till next year, is a surprise to me.
