President Trump has won a war for the United States – the acknowledged defeat of ISIS – and the response from the media has been mostly crickets.

"This is one of the best stories of the young Trump administration. While many of the battles were fought under Obama, Trump pursued the enemy relentlessly. He delegated decision-making to commanders in the field, they fought within the laws of war, and they prevailed. Trump promised to defeat ISIS, and he has delivered a tremendous victory," writes National Review columnist David French.

So why isn't this in the headlines?

Because, explains New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, while there are several contributing factors, the success "does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested."

French recounts the "momentous news of ISIS's defeat."

"Iraq – with indispensable American help – has regained control of its cities and its border with Syria. ISIS has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. The victory isn't confined to Iraq. American-allied forces control ISIS's former capital in Syria, and the world's largest jihadist army is gone.

Now anyone can send President Trump a digital thank-you card by visiting ThankTrump.us. Simply select one of the 10 unique card designs, type a personalized message if desired, and click "Submit" to send your card electronically to the White House. That's it – there's no cost involved.

"Bands of insurgents still prowl the countryside, and ISIS cells exist across the world, but the war against the 'caliphate' is over. It's been won," he writes.

French notes that just three years ago, "the ISIS blitzkrieg had brought Iraq to its knees."

"Jihadists controlled immense sections of Iraq and Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi spoke from Mosul's Great Mosque, declared himself 'Caliph Ibrahim,' and called on Muslims across the world to join him in his jihad. … They answered his call by the thousands."

The jihadists "flocked to Syria and Iraq from North Africa, Europe, and Asia."

"Britain was rocked by reports that more of its Muslim residents had joined ISIS than joined the British military. ISIS initiated genocide. It threatened the Kurds. It threatened Baghdad. Americans old enough to remember the fall of Saigon began to wonder: Was history repeating itself? For veterans of the Iraq War like me, these were extraordinarily painful months. Friends died over there. Others lost limbs or suffered terrible wounds. Every man and woman who served in Iraq sacrificed something, even if it was 'only' a year of their life."

Obama eventually intervened, but "ISIS still dominated the narrative."

French asks: "Remember how debates about ISIS dominated the presidential primaries? Remember how Donald Trump and Ted Cruz ratcheted up their rhetoric until they both seemed to promise that they'd commit war crimes like carpet bombing and torture to defeat the deadly threat?"

He recalls ISIS "was often the most important and most prominent story in the world."

"Now, however, the caliphate is a smoking ruin. It courted conflict with the great powers. It craved Armageddon, and it got its wish. No one knows ISIS's exact casualty figures, but its fighters have died by the tens of thousands."

He describes the outcome as "one of the best stories of the young Trump administration."

"While many of the battles were fought under Obama, Trump pursued the enemy relentlessly. He delegated decision-making to commanders in the field, they fought within the laws of war, and they prevailed. Trump promised to defeat ISIS, and he has delivered a tremendous victory."

Douthat at the Times says "nobody seemed to noticed" Trump winning the war that "just two years ago consumed headlines and dominated political debate."

The war's "expansion was the defining foreign policy calamity of Barack Obama's second term, whose executions of Americans made the U.S.A. look impotent and whose utopian experiment drew volunteers drunk on world-historical ambitions and metaphysical dreams."

He cites Max Abrahms and John Glaser at the Los Angeles Times, who pointed out the defeat of ISIS failed to develop as many politicians envisioned.

For example, the commentary says, there was no war with Bashar al-Assad or the creation of a new opposition army.

French also notes the assumption that if you crush one terror group another springs up.

Douthat says media played a role in the "failure," since the victory doesn't line up with its "narrative."

"For now, the Trump administration's approach to the Middle East has been moderately successful, and indeed close to what I would have hoped for from a normal Republican president following a realist-internationalist course," Douthat wrote. "In particular, Trump has avoided the temptation often afflicting Republican uber-hawks, in which we're supposed to fight all bad actors on 16 fronts at once. Instead he's slow-walked his hawkish instincts on Iran, tolerated Assad and avoided dialing up tensions with Russia. The last issue is of course entangled with the great collusion debate — but it's still a good thing that our mini-cold war has remained relatively cool and we aren't strafing each other over Syria.

"If you had told me in late 2016 that almost a year into the Trump era the caliphate would be all-but-beaten without something far worse happening in the Middle East, I would have been surprised and gratified. So very provisionally, credit belongs where it's due — to our soldiers and diplomats, yes, but to our president as well."

Abrahms and Glaser said the "rollback of Islamic State must come as a shock to the chorus of journalists and analysts who spent years insisting that such progress would never happen without toppling the regime of Bashar Assad — which is, of course, still standing."

"A cavalcade of opinion makers long averred that Islamic State would thrive in Syria so long as Assad ruled because the Syrian Arab Army was part of the same disease," they said.

The Daily Signal cited Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Trump, saying the president is "defeating terrorism by letting the military do its job."

"I had a tier one operator, meaning a top of the top special operations guy on detail from the National Security Council … come up to me in maybe week five of the administration and say, 'Sir, you have no idea, no idea how the morale amongst our forces have skyrocketed because we are no longer micromanaged … and we are allowed to do our job, and it is clear the president trusts us.'"

Gorka said Trump did in months what Obama, who called ISIS a "J.V. team," claimed would take years.

"There is no ISIS caliphate any longer. We have liberated Mosul, we have taken back Raqqa, the operational headquarters of ISIS, and just three weeks ago, the last ISIS stronghold in Syria has fallen as well."

For ending the war, and other accomplishments, WND now offers the Thank Trump Card Campaign. Some 17,000 already have gone online to send him a thank you, an effort that already has been praised by both Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity.

Express gratitude to president for 1st-year accomplishments https://t.co/iYx87dT8ns via @worldnetdaily — Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) November 15, 2017

Breitbart News also published a story at the time of the launch announcing the start of the Thank Trump campaign to their readers.

And recently, popular radio host Alex Jones threw his support behind the campaign during an interview with WND founder and CEO Joseph Farah on "The Alex Jones Show."

"We'd better thank our lucky stars," Jones said. "The Supreme Court we've got, what's happened with the economy, all of it – they planned to sew it all up when Hillary got in – the censorship, the control."

Jones added: "The answer is to get everybody doing what [WND] and Joseph Farah have done, and that's what's going to cause a hydrogen bomb explosion of thankfulness."

The newest card design directly addresses Trump's recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. embassy there. It reads, "you kept your promise."



The most popular card by far remains the spiritually themed one that reads, "Praying for your continued success! May the Lord bless you and keep you." Forty-one percent of users have selected that card.

For a continuously updated list of reasons to be thankful for President Trump, check out WND's BIG LIST of Trump accomplishments.

WND.com, originally known as WorldNetDaily, was established in 1997 as the first independent online news agency. And WND has run other innovative political campaigns in the past, including the famous "Pink Slip" project, which sent 9 million messages to Congress on pink paper threatening members with rejection at the polls in November 2010 if they did not act on their campaign promises. The campaign was so successful, it exhausted supplies of pink paper in North America. Republicans gained 63 House seats to take control of the House of Representatives in that election.

Media representatives who would like to interview WND founder and CEO Joseph Farah about the campaign are encouraged to email [email protected]

Now anyone can send President Trump a digital thank-you card by visiting ThankTrump.us. Simply select one of our 10 unique card designs, type a personalized message if desired, and click "Submit" to send your card electronically to the White House. That's it – there's no cost involved.