The Pentagon was very public about how much they opposed President Trump’s plan to withdraw from Syria last year. They’re still very opposed to it, and are trying to spin it as a mark of failure in Syria.



There are big problems with this argument, the biggest of which is that the US never actually withdrew from Syria in the first place, so any report that suggests this mythical pullout caused other things to happen was necessarily flawed.



Still, that didn’t stop the Pentagon from issuing a report that claimed that ISIS is making a comeback in Syria because of Trump’s withdrawal, which never actually happened. This is a fairly cynical attempt to further pollute the idea of the pullout, and ensure a permanent US presence.



It’s almost as if this report was prepared last year as a backlash to the pullout if it had happened. Perhaps more confusingly, this is the only Pentagon report really suggesting ISIS is making a comeback in Syria, which by all other indications isn’t happening either.





Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz