Taliban fighters under Mullah Hafizullah Haqqani attend a surrender ceremony in Baghlan province, Afghanistan, November 2017. Sahel/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
President Trump’s sudden decisions in December to withdraw United States forces from Syria and halve the number of troops in Afghanistan caught almost all his advisors by surprise. They led to the resignation of defense secretary James Mattis, and hasty backtracking in the state department as Turkey vigorously protested.
A month later, Trump still sees his bring-the-troops-home stance as fulfilling his campaign pledge to end US involvement in pointless wars. This week's tweeted declaration (“stop the ENDLESS WARS”) was typically robust. But as so often with Trump, rhetoric and reality don't quite coincide. The Syria timetable is now stretching out over many months while the Afghanistan one is also uncertain. Extracting US forces from these countries – and from Iraq, though it receives rather less attention – is proving tricky.
