Moishe, you are right that ISIS started to retreat by the end of Obama. But “started to retreat” does not mean it was “done” or that people expected it to be gone soon. See below a quote from foreign policy paper by a liberal prof. He mostly blames Obama for failure with Assad and initial ISIS growth, but you can see there that the expectation was that ISIS will keep territory and continue projecting terrorism threat to Europe. If you search news in 2016, you can see more of similar. Some specific action taken by Trump were: providing actual weapons to Kurds “as they were” instead of training some future pure force; allowing shooting targets without spending hours vetting with the White House; working effectively with Iranian militias in Iraq (thru Iraqis, without any formal partnership).
Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever
Yet a third result of Obama’s ineffectuality lay in the rise of the Islamic State, a terrorist organization even more bloody-minded and bent on conquest than the al Qaeda fragments from which it sprang. Obama obviously did not create the Islamic State, contrary to Donald Trump’s absurd campaign-trail slanders. But his administration was laggard in countering its gathering strength. Although the terrorist outfit is on the defensive now, it continues to orchestrate deadly strikes in Europe, and, indirectly, to inspire lone-wolf attacks in the United States, guaranteeing that terrorism will remain a major threat on both continents for years to come.