The killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, by American forces this past weekend should have been a big boost for Donald Trump’s popularity.

Instead, the president managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by making it all about himself.

The result? He was booed — with chants of “lock him up” — at Sunday’s World Series game.

Baseball fans turned on him when he was shown on the stadium’s large screen just as the crowd was asked to cheer for military veterans.

The juxtaposition of heroes with the president was clearly just too much.

And no wonder. Trump has betrayed his military and intelligence officials at every opportunity. He did so most recently by pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, forcing them to abandon their Kurdish allies.

Sunday was no different. The soldiers who actually carried out the mission to kill al-Baghdadi were thanked almost as an afterthought in Trump’s speech. First acknowledgements went to Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq — countries analysts say had nothing to do with success of the mission.

Kurdish and U.S. intelligence officers who worked tirelessly to locate al-Baghdadi were also footnotes to Trump’s self-aggrandizement.

“Baghdadi had been on the run for many years, long before I took office. But at my direction, as commander-in-chief of the United States, we obliterated his caliphate 100 per cent in March of this year,” he claimed.

Not so fast. U.S. forces have not obliterated ISIS, according to almost every expert. Intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria actually put the mission against al-Baghdadi at risk.

So yes, Mr. President, you deserved those boos. The credit for this success goes to the troops and officials who pulled it off despite your leadership, not because of it.

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