NICK GILLESPIE: The World Is Not Ending Because of Donald Trump. In Fact, It’s Not Even Ending.

Trump is doing pretty much exactly what he promised he would do: Shrink our military footprint around the world, insist on a border wall, act impulsively and childlishly. Critics are right to chastise Trump for not following any sort of coherent process in arriving at or announcing his Syria decision, but it’s still the right decision. It’s always ugly and disturbing when the United States pulls out of occupied countries (remember Saigon?), but are we supposed to stay in Syria and Afghanistan forever?

In this case, Trump isn’t the problem. The problem is American foreign policy, which has been a virtually unmitigated disaster for the entire 21st century (and really, can we talk about Yemen at some point?).

The assumption that our prior Syria policy — or our prior foreign policy in general — was some sort of well-oiled high-performance machine that Trump is screwing up is hilarious. Who can look at the last two decades and think that?

Besides, you know, people who are paid to.