IS leader’s death happened in spite of Trump
President Trump took several graceless victory laps Sunday for a success that he nearly undermined.
According to multiple news reports, the CIA last summer had obtained information about the possible location of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State. Officials identified a village in northwest Syria and began planning a raid to capture or kill one of the most wanted terrorists in the world.
But on Oct. 6, without any heads-up to the Pentagon or CIA, Trump ordered a withdrawal of American troops in Syria. Pentagon officials worried that the withdrawal would make it harder to monitor al-Baghdadi, so they moved up the timetable for the raid, likely increasing the risk.
In addition, Kurdish allies whom Trump abandoned provided critical information about al-Baghdadi. Though Trump had made the hunt for this terrorist a priority, a New York Times report said the raid “occurred largely in spite of, and not because of, Mr. Trump’s actions.”
Council on Foreign Affairs President Richard Haass was more specific. In a tweet, Haass said, “The irony of the successful operation is that it could not have happened without U.S. forces on the ground that have been pulled out, help from Syrian Kurds who have been betrayed, and support of a U.S. intelligence community that has so often been disparaged.”
Al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest as Delta Force commandos closed in. His death is a significant – if not conclusive – event in the fight against the Islamic State. That also was the case with Al-Qaeda after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
When President Obama announced bin Laden’s death, his remarks came with little buildup just before midnight on a Sunday. He gave few details about the operation, took no questions, did not tout his role in approving the raid and ended after about nine minutes by remembering the victims of 9/ 11 and praising the United States.
Trump, however, made the announcement all about him. He tweeted a preview late Saturday night: “Something very big has just happened!” He delayed his appearance until Sunday morning, preempting the news shows that otherwise might have been discussing impeachment.
The president spoke for nearly an hour, including exchanges with reporters. He said al-Baghdadi had died “whimpering, screaming and crying.” Continuing his obsession with Obama, Trump bragged that alBaghdadi’s demise was a much bigger deal than bin Laden’s.
At such a moment, selfpromotion was undignified.
But there was more.
Trump practically dismissed the role of the Kurds, who have criticized him for leaving Syria and abandoning them to a Turkish military incursion that began three days later. The Kurds have been America’s proxy against the Islamic State. Trump thanked them for “certain support.” But also said, “We didn’t need very much help.”
American intelligence officials contradicted Trump. They considered the Kurds’ assistance essential to tracking the ISIS leader.
As an example, Kurdish spies watched the villa where they believed alBaghdadi was hiding. A Kurdish commander told The New York Times that those spies stole a pair of al-Baghdadi’s underwear to obtain a blood sample. DNA testing confirmed the identity.
Having downplayed the Kurds, Trump falsely elevated himself. The president claimed that in his pre-9/11 book “The America We Deserve,” he said of bin
Laden, “You have to kill him. You have to take him out.”
Associated Press fact checkers examined that claim. They found that the book “makes a passing mention of bin Laden but did no more than point to the Al-Qaeda leader as one of many threats to U.S. security. Nor does he say in the book that bin Laden should have been killed.”
To further puff himself, Trump said of the terrorists: “They’re very technically brilliant. You know, they use the Internet better than almost anybody in the world, perhaps other than Donald Trump.”
As Obama noted eight years ago, the death of bin Laden did not end the threat from Al-Qaeda. Nor does the death of al-Baghdadi end the threat from the Islamic State.
Al-Baghdadi already had named a successor – Abdullah Qardash. Estimates are that between 10,000 and 18,000 Islamic State fighters remain, though the campaign that Obama began and Trump continued has taken away all the territory in Iraq and Syria that the group once claimed as its “caliphate.”
Trump vowed that the United States would continue to hunt down terrorists. His policies, though, will make that mission harder.
Syria and Russia control the airspace over the area where al-Baghdadi hid out. On the ground, no one is in charge. Such areas breed stateless terrorism. That’s why national security experts criticized Trump’s withdrawal from what had been a stable part of Syria, from which America could monitor the region.
Had the al-Baghdadi raid failed, Trump surely would have accepted no blame. Fortunately, those in charge performed better than the man who claimed credit.