Rather simplistic and naive view of things isn't it?
Two years ago the President stated a desire to end American Military presence in all of these places and tasked the DOD and State Department to come up with effective plans to do so.
Perhaps all those adults and intellectuals you pinned your hopes on were not as capable as you thought and when the Boss saw there being either an unwillingness or inability to carry out his Strategic Policy Goals....he brought heat on those tasked to do so.
Those Intellectuals and Adults had Sixteen Years to figure it out for Afghanistan and here we are two more years later and we are still there.
Let's look back to how we got into these situations to begin with and suppose we take an unbiased objective view of that and lay responsibility where it belongs.
Syria was a French controlled area before it gained its short lived independence before it fell under Russian influence during the Cold War. Then the Obama/Clinton team went for Regime change and began to arm the insurrection groups which led to a rather long drawn out Civil War with Iran Turkey, the Iraqi's, French, Russians, Saudi's, Americans, and Brits getting involved.
Those policies by Obama/Clinton led to the rise of ISIS which Obama famously called the "Junior Varsity" as you might remember.
About the same time the Obama/Clinton Team saw to the over throw of the Libyan Leader and graciously "led from the rear" in the process.
That followed on their great success in the disaster in Egypt when they saw to their desired goal of regime change there.
Now tell me about the absence of Adults and Intellectuals in the previous administration will you?
You might add a short dissertation on the Obama administration re-ordering of the US Military senior leadership......what was it....over 200 very senior Leaders sent packing to ensure handpicked favorites rose to the upper levels of his Administration?
This is a far more extensive, complex, and difficult situation than General Mattis getting in a huff over a single President's decision to pull Two Thousand Troops out of Syria while leaving Five Thousand in Iraq conducting joint operations in Syria.
Last edited by SASless; 24th Dec 2018 at 16:17.