dropping off. yeah. the president has a lot to deal with as he sits down to christmas dinner at mar-a-largo. what is happening in syria is very serious. you wonder why the president has said, it s not our job to police the middle east. we went in there for a reason. we have it under control. now it s time to leave. the argue is it s not under control. isis back on its heels but not defeated. why would the u.s. give to russia, who is not an ally, a foe of the united states, they were fighting with the other side on this, it s not isis but with assad. we had to bomb assad s air base that was responsible for the planes that dropped those chemical weapons on his own civilians. we had to bomb those air bases. so you wonder why is he kind of handing this one to putin? we should remember also, this is a big geographic victory for putin. he wants to have an expanded
being on the ground causes danger and we had not figured out how to turn that presence into a resolution of the war. i like the way it gave us some leverage and defeating isis, limiting iran s influence and protecting the kurds. shepard: headline in the new york times, kurdish fighters talking about releasing superior is fighters and expecting a turkish attack. the syrian democratic forces are considering monitoring. how quickly could isis reconstitute using cell phones and instant messages to create a situation like paris was blowing up not that long ago? it took about 1 1/2 to two years for the remnants of al-quaida in iraq and other elements to turn in to isis and
as a result of the withdrawal of those that risked everything to fight with the u.s. against isis. not a single u.s. military commander or leader agrees with the president s decision to pull all 2,000 troops out of syria, leaving a vacuum that iran and isis will full. the decision is reviewed as a christmas government to vladimir putin that welcomed the news in moscow today. the russian embassy tweeted the following praise for the president s decision. the u.s. decision to pull its troops from syria creates good prospects for a political solution in that arab country. shep? shepard: jennifer griffin reporting from the pentagon. let s turn to michael o hanlon. your take on this. i largely agree with the thrust of what folks have been saying.
i trust his judgment on this. i think he made the right choice. shepard: as senator graham mentioned, vladimir putin is praising president trump. as for the islamic state group defeat, i agree with the president of the united states. i have already spoken about the fact that we have achieved significant changes in the fight against terrorism on this territory and have hit isis in syria. shepard: the civil war in syria has gone on for seven years. assad has killed thousands of his own people, sometimes using gasses with the support of his allies, iran and russia. it s also a proxy war between the united states and russia. so the united states has been helping not only in the battle against assad, but also in that war against the kremlin. our national security correspondent jennifer griffin with sobering reporting from the pentagon. jennifer?
lindsey graham has said this is like president obama s decision to pull out of iraq. we saw what happened there. we thought al-quaida and iraq was defeated by the surge. turned out, they were down but not out and once there was the security vacuum there, they could reform and become isis and the problems ensued. to president obama s credit, he learned from his mistake. he sent a modest amount of forces back. president trump has built on that, completed probably a 75% defeat of isis in those two countries, but it s not 100%. let s make no mistake. when you think of the broader issues, it s wrong. it s on its heels, not defeated and istanbul lurking of many cities in the east and the broader region. it could come back and this increases the risk dramatically. for what benefit? we re pulling out 2,000 u.s. forces that were operating in a