Instead of basking in the reflected glory of our accomplishment, he is now confronted with analysis pointing out his own strategy makes little sense if one considers the factors that made the raid possible. (“The president cast the death of the ISIS leader as validation of his disengagement strategy. But it required intelligence agencies and allies he has spurned,” as per the New York Times.)

Former vice president Joe Biden, in a written statement released Monday, went right after Trump’s incoherent strategy. “It’s been reported that Trump’s reckless decision to withdraw our troops from northern Syria forced the planning for the mission to be accelerated and the timeline compressed,” Biden declared. “His erratic behavior made it harder and more dangerous for the special forces carrying it out. And they had to fly through territory that is now hostile to the U.S., taking fire along the way — including territory we controlled just weeks ago.”

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Biden added, “Trump has also made it less likely we will be able to successfully replicate a mission like this in the future. The operation leveraged a limited presence of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities in the region, which he keeps trying to dismantle.” He continued, “It was made possible by the work of intelligence professionals, who he has relentlessly attacked. It relied on allies he has belittled, undermined, and in some cases betrayed and abandoned.”

As a number of experts have pointed out, Biden argued, “His fixation on keeping troops in the region to defend the oil fields betrays his true priorities — profit seeking — and will surely serve as a tool for future terrorist recruitment.”

He then distinguished himself both from Trump and the “bring everyone home” crowd on the left. “There is a difference between deploying hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to the Middle East indefinitely, and keeping small numbers of special operations and intelligence assets in place to maintain local partnerships and keep pressure on terrorists,” he explained. “That’s the smart, strong, and sustainable strategy we pioneered during the Obama-Biden Administration. That’s the effective policy we put in place, which laid the groundwork to end ISIS’s territorial caliphate.”

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Trump is so fixated on undoing former President Barack Obama’s policies that he is endangering Americans. Biden cautions: “Trump wants to tear it all down and walk away. He has no strategy for securing our nation against terrorist threats. He has no strategy for anything.” He concluded, “Every day that Donald Trump directs American national security is a dangerous day for the United States.”

This strikes me as exactly the right way to go after Trump. Trump recklessly precipitated the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds. Trump risked releasing hundreds of terrorists, cavalierly saying that at worst they would go to Europe. Trump separated us from our allies by pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with no backup plan, and then demonstrated weakness in launching — and then recalling — a strike on the Iranians.

All the Democratic candidates should point out Trump’s recklessness, ignorance and lack of credibility on the world stage. He is leaving us friendless and hence more vulnerable. Democrats do not want to echo Trump with a “pull up the drawbridge” mentality. They instead should take the remarkable opportunity to paint themselves as the party more capable of keeping our friends, minimizing conflict (which sometimes entails leaving a small force in place) and projecting a strong, coherent and believable message.