The ISIS flag flies again in Raqqa, thanks to the man who drove them out a decade ago.
No one ever thought this day would come: On Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, the flag of the Islamic State (ISIS) flew once again over Raqqa, the Syrian city that once served as its capital.
It was around ten years ago now that ISIS controlled a territory in Iraq and Syria that was larger than Britain. Given Barack Obama’s indifference (which is the best face one can put on his behavior) to its continued presence and even expansion, the ISIS caliphate looked as if it was here to stay. Then, however, came Donald J. Trump.
In a major speech on counterterrorism in August 2016, Trump pledged that “my administration will aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS.” The promise was made, and the promise was kept. Within a matter of months after his inauguration, the ISIS caliphate was no more.
And that wasn’t all. Trump said we could not only could we not allow ISIS’s evils to continue, but “nor can we let the hateful ideology of Radical Islam – its oppression of women, gays, children, and nonbelievers – be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries. We will defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism, just as we have defeated every threat we have faced in every age before.”
As part of that effort, in June 2017, President Trump called out Qatar: “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. And in the wake of that conference, nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior. So we had a decision to make: Do we take the easy road or do we finally take a hard but necessary action. We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding. And its extremist ideology in terms of funding. I want to call on all other nations to stop immediately supporting terrorism.”
Qatar paid no attention. On October 7, 2023, top Hamas leaders were in Doha, watching video of Hamas’ massacre of Israelis and glorifying Allah for the carnage. Nevertheless, when Trump two years later forced Israel to stop pursuing its goal of destroying Hamas utterly and ending its ongoing threat against Israeli civilians, he praised Qatar’s role in bringing about this spurious peace: “Qatar was a tremendous help to getting this done. I hope people can realize that. It was very tough and very dangerous for Qatar. They were very brave.” He even provided Qatar a guarantee of its security in case of attack.
None of this has ever been explained. Trump has never made reference to his 2017 statement about Qatar funding terrorism. Nor has he explained how his wholehearted embrace of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda leader who has shown not a single concrete sign of having genuinely changed his beliefs or goals, squares with his previously stated determination to fight “radical Islamic terrorism.” He doesn’t speak about that anymore, either.
It was Trump’s apparent admiration for al-Sharaa that led directly to ISIS’ reappearance in Raqqa. The Middle East Forum noted Monday that “in 2025 and 2026, Tom Barrack, the U.S. presidential envoy to Syria, threw the Kurds under the bus to appease a former U.S.-designated terrorist. In January 2026, the U.S. government pushed the Kurds to accept a fourteen-point plan, a ceasefire and integration agreement between the Transitional Syrian Government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It was a choice between a deeply flawed peace and the possibility of ethnic cleansing.”
The peace was more than deeply flawed; it was entirely chimerical. The Syrian army of Ahmed al-Sharaa is made up of his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham jihad warriors, who proceeded to attack the Kurds in the same way that they previously attacked the Druze, the Alawites, and the Christians of Syria. ISIS jihadis flowed back into Syria from their refuge in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, eager to take up where they left off. They encountered no impediments to their doing so. The Kurds drove them out in the first place, with Trump’s backing, but now the Kurds have been betrayed. With Trump’s backing.
There have been two presidents who have been elected to two non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump, and both are numbered twice on official lists of presidents. So we have, in effect, two President Trumps, 45 and 47, and they’re increasingly different from one another.
“The rise of ISIS,” the first Trump said in that August 2016 speech, “is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary Clinton.” He was right. It is also right to say that the return of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Trump and Tom Barrack. That is, the second Trump.
Will the first Trump return and clean up this mess?
Wellington says
Query: If Trump isn’t good enough, who is?
And I ask this question with an implicit assumption, to wit, it is not sufficient on its own to have the right answer in the crushing of evil No it is not. One must have both the right answer accompanied by the power to do so.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Maybe, but Robert is right. As I noted in another thread, Trump 45 was great, but had saboteurs all around him. Trump 47 has a great loyal team around him, but has gone totally haywire
I’m not even sure about a Vance presidency any more. I’d be all for a Ron DeSantis or Gregg Abbott trying a second run for the White House in 2028. Or heck, even a Pete Hegseth
Rob Porter says
Wellington, a few months ago I decided that Trump, probably for oil-rich money reasons, has climbed into bed with Muslim leaders, not least those of Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, and abandoned his earlier ambition to crush Islam. Hence the ISIS flag again flying over Raqqa.
I was delighted to see Trump re-elected, but now regard him more than a bit of a fraud and liar. All over, particularly in Africa, Christians in particular are dying, savagely murderd by Muslims. In Syria, Kurds, Druze, Christians, Alawites and other minorities have been brutally murdered by al-Sharaa’s Muslim savages – thousands! Don’t tell me Trump does not know, yet he prefers to stay in al-Sharaa’s good books because al-Sharaa is the good friend of slime-bag Saudi Prince bin Salman – who obviously does not care about savage murder of people, particularly if they are not Muslim.
The reality now is that Trump is no longer an opponent of savage, murderous, hate-filled Islam that hates Jews and Christians, he’s in bed with them – and they’ve passed on their fleas, Thus his ] ‘Board of Peace’ harbours Muslims in lock-step with the Muslim Brotherhood and fund Islamic terrorist organizations. There is not the slightest chance that t\his Board of Peace will create a just peace for Israel, in fact will work against its interests. If it is not already warned, Im am desperately hoping that Israel is now wide-awake to the possibility of Trump treachery. Now evident, Trump is not a highly principled man and has little in common with true Christians. I wonder if Ambassador Mike Huckabee has awoken to this reality?
somehistory says
Prophecy is being fulfilled.
Rob Porter says
somehistory, okay then, tell us howit is being fulfilled.
somehistory says
Alright, Rob. God gave the Revelation to Jesus, Who gave it to an angel, who took it to the Apostle John. In chapter one, we are told *when* and then throughout the book, we are told of numerous prophecies.
Chapter 6 tells us that ‘the rider on the red horse is given a sword and granted to take peace away from the earth.”
In chapter 13, we are told of a ‘beast out of the sea.’ This beast forces people to ‘bow down in worship or be killed by the sword.’
In chapter 16, we are told that ‘the nations are being gathered together for the “great day” to the Battle of Armageddon.’
No matter what the various “kings” want or try to do, the “nations are being gathered for Armageddon.”
It may look at times that Trump or another person has the ‘answers’ to bring “peace and security.” But as the Apostle Paul foretold, “Whenever it is they are saying ‘peace and security,’ sudden destruction will be upon them.”
Different men….and maybe a few women….may try to bring peace, but Armageddon is coming and the nations are being gathered. No one can stop it.
England Invaded says
He’s finally made Starmer and co put on hold the Chagos stupidity.
What I’d like to know is why he didn’t do that a year ago as most expected.
It was the previous Biden Administration who gave Starmer the go ahead.
A year ago, Trump gave the hand over his blessing.
bill says
ISIS’ caliphate may be no more but it and the other jihad groups are like a disease, you can suppress them in one area but they jusy migrate to other places and carry on their evil work there.
James Lincoln says
President Trump’s flip-flop regarding Qatar is beyond troubling.
He needs to explain this.
Rarely says
Flip-flop is his new policy.
He seems to have lost it.
Saboteurs? Or was it just advisors with different opinions. You don’t need advisors if all they do is rubber stamp every position, however insane. you take. Of course that’s the rule of the day today — NO dissent allowed. It’s actually quite humorous–and very dangerous.
Horatio says
Not only does Trump have a love affair for Qatar, he also has a soft spot in his heart for Erdogan and Turkey as well as for the new killer in chief of Syria and his pals Putin and Xi…How would he feel about Hitler, Himmler, Stalin and Mao?