THE SYRIA GAMBLE
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAD MADE UP HIS mind about Syria. It was March 29, and to the cheers of the crowd at a campaign-style stop in Richfield, Ohio, the Commander in Chief declared that after 3½ years and billions of dollars sunk into the Middle East’s bloodiest civil war, America’s troops would soon be coming home. “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said. “We’re coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”
Caught off-guard, Trump’s advisers scrambled through the Easter weekend both to craft an exit strategy to fulfill his vow—and to come up with arguments on why pulling out might not be wise. Trump did not want to hear it. During a meeting with his national-security principals in the Situation Room in the White House the following Tuesday, the President laid into his military leaders, fuming about the U.S. costs in Syria and demanding a clearer time frame for withdrawal.
At one point, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an opponent of a rapid pullout, responded to Trump’s
