“Frankly, that is why they have been so successful lately, if you look at what has happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what has happened over the last eight years, you will see there has been a tremendous difference,” he said. “What I do is authorize my military,” Trump said at the White House, before comparing the proactive use of force by his own White House with the way the military was handled under Obama.

The President pointedly noted that the expanded authority that he has given the military since taking office had led to an escalation in the pace of operations against ISIS in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere. He left open the question of whether it was conducted under widened authorizations that have freed up the Pentagon’s room for maneuver since he took over from President Barack Obama. The President described the use of a device dubbed the “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan as “another successful event,” basking in his role as commander in chief – though preserving some mystique about the strike by declining to say whether he had personally signed off on the operation.

(Courtesy photo) Department of Defense/FILEĭonald Trump made good on his campaign promise about ISIS todayīoth actions can be justified by solid military rationales and fall into the context of mainstream foreign policy goals – namely deterring the further use of some of the world’s most heinous weapons in Syria and a desire to halt the spread of ISIS into another failed state, even as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.īut the White House also knows that the use of such eye-catching force has a political impact: Both in the United States, where Trump is politically beleaguered and overseas, where foreign governments are trying to work out how Trump will wield US power and military might. Al Weimorts (left), the creator of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, and Joseph Fellenz, lead model maker, look over the prototype of the bomb before it was painted and tested.

Definition of commander in chief