The announcement this morning of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by Special Forces in Syria is a momentary positive for Donald Trump, as was the case with the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 during the administration of Barack Obama.
It will certainly go down as an accomplishment that Trump can lay claim to, as Obama did with Osama bin Laden.
But it does not mean that America is safely isolated from the Middle East quagmire, and since so many ISIS fighters were released from prison as a result of the Turkish assault in Syria against Kurds in the past two weeks, one can be sadly assured that there will be a revival of ISIS under different leadership, ready to commit terrorist acts and torture people as they did from 2014 onward.
The likelihood of ISIS retribution for the death of their leader is certain, and will affect European nations but also the United States, making the idea of foreign travel by Americans not a good idea short term, and possibly, long term.
We can rejoice and congratulate Donald Trump on this, but the road ahead in international affairs in the year up to the Presidential Election of 2020 is impossible to predict, as to whether it will benefit Trump, or his Democratic opposition, all based on events we cannot forecast.