President Donald Trump campaigned against the wars in Libya, Iraq and Syria on the campaign last year, even sounding like a non-interventionist at times. While he hasn’t lived up to his promise on all fronts as president, Trump is certainly seeing big results in Syria because of his actions.

Trump signed a controversial ceasefire with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year regarding Syria. As Democrats, ‘Never Trump’ Republicans, and other Trump enemies pointed to this as evidence of sinister collusion, the two leaders insisted that they were merely conducting standard diplomacy. The results in Syria since the agreement occurred have been evident, and serve as a feathers in the caps of both men.

Syrian military and its allied forces have all but captured provincial capital of Deir Ezzor, a region that had been primarily occupied and controlled by ISIS for many years. That has changed in recent months, and now with the exception of a few pockets of the city still controlled by ISIS, Syrian forces are now in complete control.



Syrian forces are careful not to declare victory, but are nonetheless optimistic about their prospects in keeping control of the city away from the terrorists.

“The fight for Deir Ezzor has been all but over for weeks, with the focus shifting further up-river on the Euphrates toward the Iraqi border, as Syrian forces aim to seize as many of the cities and towns along the shore before US-backed Kurds take them first,” foreign policy analyst Jason Ditz said in an Antiwar.com column.

The Trump administration has made a lot of progress, but shows signs of backsliding into foreign policy blunders of the past. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated that Americans may be interested in pursuing regime change down the line by saying that there was “no role for Bashar al-Assad in the government” of Syria. This sounds dangerously similar the Obama doctrine of disposing Assad to leave a void ultimately occupied by radical groups in the region.

If Trump really wants to make America great again, he would be wise to leave Syrians alone after ISIS is wiped out and the region is finally stabilized after years of gruesome bloodshed.