It was a good week for Isis. The pressure is off in Syria, while its vicious urban bombing campaign in Afghanistan prospectively faces less resistance. It now has a chance to regroup and regain the initiative to threaten the west again. Analysts fear it could be “Iraq all over again” – a reference to the way the jihadists came back from the dead and swept to power in Mosul and Raqqa after the US quit in 2011 with the job unfinished.

Trump “will lose the peace by withdrawing” tweeted retired US army general Jack Keane. “Isis will re-emerge, Iran a greater threat, will own all of Syria, Israel more in danger.”

via Trump’s Syria move pleases dictators and hands initiative to Isis | US news | The Guardian