President Trump Slows Syria Pullout

I learned a lot from President @realDonaldTrump about our efforts in Syria that was reassuring. (1/3)

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 30, 2018

The President will make sure any withdrawal from Syria will be done in a fashion to ensure:

1) ISIS is permanently destroyed.

2) Iran doesn’t fill in the back end, and

3) our Kurdish allies are protected.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 30, 2018

President @realDonaldTrump is talking with our commanders and working with our allies to make sure these three objectives are met as we implement the withdrawal. (3/3)

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 30, 2018

I try not to be too cynical.

There are only so many black pills that my audience can take. When I first heard about Trump’s plan to withdraw from Syria, I noticed that it wasn’t happening immediately

“President Trump has slowed down his timetable for a military withdrawal from Syria, agreeing to allow four months for the departure rather than 30 days, the New York Times reports.

Why it matters: It’s a sign that Trump may have heeded the criticisms that his initial deadline was too soon, including from outgoing Defense Secretary James Mattis, who opposed the plan. However, the Times notes that military officials won’t say when U.S. forces are actually leaving — partly for military secrecy, but in part because “officials recognize that Mr. Trump could change his mind at any moment and speed up the departure.”

In other words, Trump was giving Israel and the GOP establishment plenty of time to dial up the pressure and stymie the policy change before it actually happens. The danger here is that his followers only remember the tweets and the headlines about troops coming home from Syria and Afghanistan and fail to hear about the monkey wrench thrown into the withdrawal.

Note: Trump hasn’t actually ordered the troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.