"We are leaving soldiers [in Syria] to secure the oil," Trump said. "And we may have to fight for the oil." After announcing he wants American soldiers home, he immediately backtracked, indicating they could stay if they are "fighting something that's meaningful."

Fourth is the security argument: Prolonging these wars fails to keep Americans safe while undermining American power. This is true on multiple fronts. One is that terrorist activity in the Middle East can be addressed by regional powers, all of which share the United States' absolute opposition to ISIS and similar groups, even if we have grave differences on other matters. Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey are all "right there," Trump said, and "they all hate ISIS. So we don't—you know, in theory, they should do something."

"Look," the president said, "we don't want to keep soldiers between Syria and Turkey for the next 200 years." Nor do we—or, at least, nor should we—want to keep them elsewhere in Syria or in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and beyond.

"We're in [the] Middle East now for $8 trillion," Trump continued, referencing the long-term costs of these conflicts—and lives, with casualties numbering in the tens of thousands on the American side and the millions among civilian populations in the countries where we're at war.

"They've been fighting for hundreds of years. We're out." U.S. military intervention is too often applied to problems it is incapable of resolving—problems better suited to political, religious, and diplomatic solutions implemented by people with more knowledge and interests at stake than the United States.