Trump’s Message to Washington: Listen to Me

We’ve heard a common refrain from all corners of Washington in recent weeks: In withdrawing troops from northeastern Syria and thus abandoning America’s Kurdish partners in the fight against the Islamic State, Donald Trump risked sacrificing the safety of Americans on the altar of “America first.”

It was an argument made in various forms by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, experts, former U.S. officials, and even the president’s friends and members of his administration, from Senator Lindsey Graham to the president’s Syria envoy, James Jeffrey.

This morning, however, Trump found himself in a better position than at any time the Islamic State’s founder and leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his message was essentially: My transactional and tactical approach to alliances, and to limiting America’s military presence in the Middle East in particular and overseas more generally, just worked in spectacular fashion, fulfilling “the top national-security priority of my administration.”