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Max Boot: Trump is about to squander our gains against the Islamic State

“We’re on the two-yard line. We could literally fall into the end zone. We’re that close to total victory, to wiping out the ISIS caliphate in Syria,” a U.S. Special Forces officer in Syria told NBC News last week.

But President Donald Trump seems determined to turn over the ball on the goal line, setting up the geopolitical version of the 2015 Super Bowl that the Seattle Seahawks lost with a last-minute interception.

On Thursday, Trump said, “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.” He then froze the paltry $200 million the United States had pledged to help rebuild areas liberated from the Islamic State.