“We’re gonna beat ISIS very, very quickly, folks. It’s gonna be fast. I have a great plan. It’s going to be great. They ask, ‘What is it?’ Well, I’d rather not say.”
Donald Trump made this pledge to supporters in Connecticut in April 2016. At the time, it seemed unlikely he would ever have to make good on the promise. After all, Hillary Clinton led comfortably in the polls. However, Trump’s surprise victory gave him the chance to back up his claim. Many were openly skeptical he could do it.
But one year into the Trump administration, the facts on the ground—in Syria and Iraq—have changed dramatically. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, lost control of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, in July 2017. Three months later, ISIS’ capital—the Syrian city of Raqqa—fell.
Many fighters retreated to Deir ez-Zor in the country’s east. In November 2017, that too fell. The “caliphate” that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced with such fanfare in the summer of 2014 was in tatters.
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