The Syria learning curve

During the presidential campaign, writer Salena Zito had an intelligent insight: that the press took Donald Trump literally but not seriously, while his supporters took him seriously but not literally. On Syria, he seems unsure which way to take himself, and is, in the process, risking repeating President Obama’s mistakes in Iraq.

During the presidential primaries, Trump lambasted fellow Republicans for having supported the war in Iraq (which, cough cough, he also backed, but let’s set that aside for now). He pledged to avoid Middle East entanglements and focus on rebuilding America: “No more endless wars.”

He simultaneously lambasted Obama as being the “founder of ISIS” for prematurely pulling out of Iraq in a manner that allowed the terrorist thugocracy to take root.

If you can identify the contradiction in those two positions, you aren’t alone.

Then came Syria, where brutal Iran- and Russia-backed dictator Bashar Assad, rebels and ISIS have been in a long, bloody three-way civil war. As President, Trump escalated U.S. involvement, with 2,000 troops on the ground and air strikes.

It worked, to a point. ISIS, which once controlled a territory it deemed a caliphate, has been routed militarily, at least for now.

One might get half a whiff of victory, except that Assad is still murdering innocents and consolidating his power, and ISIS radicals lay in wait.

Remember, Trump eviscerated his predecessor for pulling troops out of Iraq after eight years in the country.

Last month, eight months after turning up the dial in Syria, the President casually announced at an Ohio rally that U.S. troops would be leaving “very soon” — a cavalier comment that the White House scrambled to walk back within days.

As the Associated Press reports, that came after tough exchanges with his military brain trust where he initially called for all troops to be yanked from the country “immediately.”

Told that was impossible and to consider a one-year withdrawal period instead, Trump declared that the Islamic State be wiped out in six months and begin withdrawal shortly thereafter.

The generals know what history teaches: that prematurely abandoning Syria to Russia and Iran could well be a recipe for further chaos. Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton, warned exactly that in 2015, saying post-ISIS Syria will “require sustained American attention and commitment. We cannot walk away from this situation as we did from Iraq in 2011.”

Presidenting sure is hard.