President Trump: U.S. Has ‘Won’ Against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq

Bloomberg: Trump Says U.S. Has ‘Won’ Against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq

President Donald Trump said the U.S. has won the fight against Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq and is pursuing the extremists as they spread elsewhere.

“We’ve won in Syria, we’ve won in Iraq, but they spread to other areas and we’re getting them as fast as they spread,” Trump said Tuesday at the White House during a ceremony to sign defense policy legislation.

Trump spoke a day after the arrest of a Bangladeshi immigrant after a bombing at a New York City subway station. Police said the explosion was a botched suicide mission. The suspect, who was burned in the blast, told law enforcement officials at the hospital that he “did it for the Islamic State,” according to a criminal complaint.

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WNU Editor: President Trump made these remarks when he signed the the National Defense Authorization Act today (see above video). The defeat of the Islamic State was the result of a multi-nation coalition, and while everyone is taking credit for the defeat of ISIS, the ones who bared the heaviest casualties were the Syrian Kurds, the Iraqi Army, and Iraqi Shiite militias. And while the Islamic State has been defeated, the key is to now win the peace. Of the two countries, I am more optimistic on the future of Iraq than Syria. The Iraqis have been fighting for years .... if not for generations. And while I am not there, my sense from what I am reading is that the people of Iraq are genuinely tired of war. Syria is another situation entirely. Assad is dependent on Iran, Hezbollah, and Russian air power to stay in power, and when a government is that heavily dependent on foreign powers to stay in power while showing little if any interest to pursue a diplomatic resolution to a sectarian conflict .... perpetual war is usually the outcome.