Mourning is over.

Supporters of the Iran-backed militia have begun to withdraw from @USEmbBaghdad after US reinforcements arrive in the form of 100 Marines and Apache helicopters.@EsperDoD announced 750 members of the 82nd Airborne will also be deployed to the region.https://t.co/vmIhKz2vUN

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 1, 2020

Do tell.

Winston Churchill once said there was no more exhilarating feeling than to be shot at and missed. Conversely there is nothing worse than to shoot at your sworn enemy and publicly miss. The ayatollahs have committed the ultimate diplomatic crime and walked out empty handed.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) January 1, 2020

Source tweet.

Update: More here.

President @realDonaldTrump arrives at his third #ArmyNavyGame to roars after signing executive order allowing military academy athletes to play professional sports before their post-academy service.

This is HUGE for big-time athletes who also want to serve their country 🇺🇸

Wow pic.twitter.com/CI2G9lUqck

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 14, 2019

Not related, but close enough to mention here: Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a moderate Democrat who is strongly opposed to impeaching President Donald Trump, is expected to switch parties and become a Republican

Update: Why look. They’re showing up to riot.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: […] So we have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country that we’re supposed to be protecting you against. You know, everybody is talking about it all over the world. They’ll say, well, wait a minute, we’re supposed to be protecting you from Russia, but why are you paying billions of dollars to Russia for energy? Why are countries in NATO, namely Germany, having a large percentage of their energy needs paid to Russia and taken care of by Russia?

 

Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply. They got rid of their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at. I think it’s very inappropriate. You and I agree that it’s inappropriate. I don’t know what you can do about it now, but it certainly doesn’t seem to make sense that they paid billions of dollars to Russia and now we have to defend them against Russia.

 

SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: You know, NATO is an alliance of 29 nations, and there are sometimes differences and different views, and also some disagreements. And the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is one issue where allies disagree. But the strength of NATO is that despite these differences, we have always been able to unite around our core task, to protect and defend each other, because we understand that we are stronger together than apart.

 

I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart.

 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?

 

SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that —

 

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, you’re just making Russia richer. You’re not dealing with Russia. You’re making Russia richer.

A cluster bomb of truth only Trump could pull off.  Read the whole thing.

Shake ’em up.

The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to people familiar with the work.

 

The effort follows Trump’s expression of interest in removing the troops, made during a meeting earlier this year with White House and military aides, U.S. officials said. Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the U.S. presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.

 

Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling to determine whether Trump actually intends to reposition U.S. forces or whether it is merely a negotiating tactic ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump is again likely to criticize U.S. allies for what he deems insufficient defense spending.

Related (from 2008).

CNN, November 2016;

Trump pledged in September that on his first day in office he would issue his generals with a simple instruction: “They will have 30 days to submit to the Oval Office a plan for soundly and quickly defeating ISIS.”
His premise is that the US-led coalition simply isn’t ruthless enough. In an interview with Fox News in September, Trump said: “We have to lead for a change because we are not knocking them. We’re hitting them every once in a while, we’re hitting them in certain places, we’re being very gentle about it.”
But promises made in the heat of a campaign are often tempered by reality later. The complexities of tackling ISIS in two countries amid an array of competing parties do not give themselves easily to campaign slogans.

PJ Media, December 2017;

The international coalition against ISIS announced today that it believes there are fewer than 1,000 ISIS jihadists remaining in Syria and Iraq. That represents one-third of the coalition’s estimate from just a few weeks ago.

Related: As 2017 is on the point of vanishing, it’s worth asking whether it’s time to take Trump seriously, if not literally, as a public policy maker.