Amid this lamentable situation, Trump has the one clear strategy that makes sense. America’s military objective in Syria is to kill ISIS. With that goal basically achieved, it is time to recognize mission completion and resist our military-intelligence bureaucracies’ usual inclination to move the goal posts and fight on.

Trump’s strategy recognizes another reality. We need to wean our military from decades of playing cowboys and Indians in the Middle East and focus on the free world’s biggest threat: China. Since the 1991 Gulf War, our military has spent trillions trying to shape the Middle East. Some efforts have been necessary and wise, others have not. A focus on hunting violent jihadists in the years after the 9/11 attacks on America made sense, but that threat is now diminished. Al Qaeda and ISIS are shadows of their former selves in the Middle East and governments there have greatly expanded capacities to deal with insurgents who remain. The main threat to the West from Islamism is now posed by political and cultural influences, especially Islamist migrants.