James Mattis helped keep Trump in check. The world will miss him | Peter Beaumont

The decision to pull out of Syria has dismayed allies, delighted foes – and proved the final straw for the US secretary of defence

In mid-October General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, issued a discreet warning about the continuing threat from Islamic State.

While he noted that the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate had shrunk to almost nothing in terms of territory, he pointed to the hundred foreign fighters a month still crossing Turkey’s border into Iraq and Syria that suggested a continuing level of resilience.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GA9QY5
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