Don't look now, but Donald Trump's strategy is beating ISIS in Syria

NJ.com ^ | September 17,2017 | Paul Mulshine

[Hojczyk]

Trump won. And at the moment he's winning the war against ISIS, said one Mideast expert who cautioned against U.S. involvement in Syria from the beginning.

When I called Pat Lang at his home inside the Beltway, he said that ISIS forces are being pummeled by the coalition of the Syrian Army, the Russians, Hezbollah and various Shiite Muslim militias. Soon, Lang predicted, ISIS "will cease to be an effective combat force and they will go underground."

That of course would represent a major victory for the minority view expressed by Trump. That view - also supported as by two of his opponents in the GOP primary, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz - was that the U.S. should get out of the business of deposing secular dictators in the Mideast.

That should have been obvious after George W. Bush's bungled exercise in deposing the secular dictator in Iraq. But even after Trump's election victory, the Beltway establishment was still pushing the idea that the secular dictator in Syria must be removed.

"They've been sold the idea that the Syrian government must be destroyed and they just went along with it," said Lang, a former Vietnam Green Beret who speaks Arabic and spent a good chunk of his Army career in the Mideast . "Only very grudgingly have they been wiling to admit that the Russian, the Syrians and their friends are making a lot of progress against ISIS."

That may be the reason that you need to go to military-oriented blogs like Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis site to read how ISIS is being squeezed in Syria. There, you can read in infinite detail about the efforts to clean up what an Army spokesman termed "holdouts" in provinces such as Idlib and Deir al-Zor.

[Hojczyk]

More from the article

The work is proceeding apace, and the real story now is how the endgame will play out.

Not good for the Beltway crowd, said Lang. The establishment types wanted to remove Assad because he was too close to the Iranians and the Shiite militias such as Hezbollah. Now he’s a lot closer to them - and they’re a lot closer to the border with Israel.

His site recently posted a link to an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz describing how the Israeli government demanded that the Russians keep any Iranian or Shiite militia forces outside a 50-mile buffer zone from the Israeli border. The Russians refused, the article stated.

It’s becoming clear the Obama administration’s decision to poke the Syrian hornet’s nest will go down in history with Bush’s bungling in Iraq as two of the most misguided foreign-policy exercises in U.S. history.

As for Trump, Lang suspects he just wants to do what he promised during the campaign: get rid of ISIS and get out of Dodge.

“I suspect there’s an understanding between him and the Russians that they’re to deal with ISIS and he’s just keeping quiet about it because they are dealing with ISIS,” he said. “What he really wants is for the people in the Mideast to shut up and leave him alone.”

That’s what the American people want as well.

But don’t tell the Beltway crowd.

[Morpheus2009]

The uniparty is not going to care.

[Innovative]

Excellent. Trump is committed to destroying the terrorists everywhere.

[LS]

If anyone has any doubt, follow Thomas Wictor on Twitter. He almost daily analyzes the total destruction of ISIS in methodical photo analysis.

[equaviator]

I’m just Joe Q. Public...What right do I have to know everything that happens at our most secure military installations?

[DesertRhino]

Its another of the loser strategies like we used in Afghanistan post 9/11.
We lost a chance to shock the world with the object lesson we could have unleashed.

Instead we assist some rebel jihadi army in a slow infantry grind. It should have been a linebacker II effort, and a ring of steel perimeter capturing all survivors. They should have been kept in pens for a year like krauts and slowly sorted through for hangings.

As it is, we gave them astonishing amounts of time to escape to Europe to continue.

This is ok, but nothing to really brag about. ISIS will be gone, and a Syrian rebel group will still be in charge, then our generals will get back to their main dream of overthrowing Assad for their Saudi masters.

[UCANSEE2]

Trump is committed to destroying the terrorists everywhere.

I disagree.

Trump is committed to WANTING the terrorists destroyed, and GETTING those who should destroy the terrorists to do the job instead of US.

[karnage]

Thomas Wictor is brilliant. Almost in the same league as... LS!

[karnage]

Insightful comment, UCanSee2!

[TheTimeOfMan]

I think ISIS is one of the biggest collections of human scum in all history. My hate is visceral.

But so what if we defeat ISIS? Ten new heads will rise to replace it.

We are at war with islam, not terrorism, and our leaders are too ignorant and / or too stupid to realize it.

[DoughtyOne]

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President Donald J. Trump and the Free Republic of the United States of America
President Donald J. Trump's address to the United Nations on 09/19/2017.

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[Widget Jr]

I wonder how much of this was The U.S. simply cutting off their funds and weapons.
From 2014: Biden Admits that there were no moderate fighters in Syria and the youtube link.
These rebels are phony freedom fighters and everyone knew it.
Congress knew it and went along with Obama's incompetent war anyway.

The news won't give Trump credit, but he is cleaning up the mess.

[advance_copy]

I might not agree with him on everything. But Mr. Trump is doing an outstanding job as President.