ASIDE from the impact on the balance of power in Syria, President Donald Trump’s announcement he is pulling out US troops is predicated upon a major error.

The president has declared the battle against Daesh (the so-called IS) to be won. This is simply not true. He had always committed himself to withdrawing the force of around 2,000 military personnel when Daesh had been defeated. But just because the terrorists have been chased into their final enclave in Hajin on the banks of the Euphrates in the east of Syria does not mean that Trump can suddenly declare final victory.

His surprising announcement, reportedly made without any detailed White House consultation with the Pentagon, was disturbingly reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s triumphant “Mission Accomplished” speech on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. Bush, arguably one of America’s most purblind recent presidents could not have been more wrong. His hubristic crowing actually marked the descent of Iraq into bloody chaos with approaching a million dead and injured Iraqis. Bush’s blunder in Iraq also unleashed the very Daesh terrorism his earlier invasion of Afghanistan was supposed to counter.

It has taken four years of international effort, on the ground and in the air, for the much-vaunted ‘Islamic State’ to be seized back from the terrorists. It has taken all of three months for Kurdish fighters, backed by the US, to actually overrun most of Hajin and drive Daesh killers back to their final lairs. But the trademark tunnels into which the terrorists have retreated are a metaphor for how they will now conduct their murderous campaign. They will do it from the shadows, from holes in the ground, from concealed places when security forces least expect attack.

It was always naïve to imagine that, as they were ousted from the territory they had overrun in Iraq and Syria, Daesh leaders would not leave behind them, sleeper cells, weapons caches and even military vehicles buried in the sand. They seized mountains of war materiel when Iraq soldiers cut and ran from heavily defended positions such as Mosul. The blows that have been struck to destroy them have actually dispersed the survivors in small parcels, sometimes tiny parcels, rather as mercury behaves when hit with a hammer.

Trump spoke of moving the US operations into a new phase but didn’t outline what that might be. From reactions yesterday, Pentagon generals, along with commanders on the ground in Syria, have no idea about the new plan. This suggests the president himself may only have a vague idea.

From his allies in the four-year Coalition that has beaten back Daesh, there has also been mystification and dismay. The British have said bluntly he has got it completely wrong. The Syrian Kurds have done much of the heavy fighting while Bashar Assad and his Iranian and terrorist Hezbollah forces have largely beaten Daesh forces weakened by the Kurds. They are now understandably shocked. They fear outright Turkish attack once US forces have withdrawn from among them.

In Washington one of the president’s most loyal supporters has described his announcement as “an Obama-sized mistake”. But perhaps the best measure of the shortsightedness of this withdrawal plan is how it has been greeted so enthusiastically in both Damascus and Moscow. Trump should think again.