http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-trumps-team-changed-his-mind-about-the-war-afghanistan
"The Washington Post’s account of how this unfolded – the president “pinballed between his militaristic and anti-interventionist impulses” – included an important detail. President Trump was frustrated and fuming. Again and again, in the windowless Situation Room at the White House, he lashed out at his national security team over the Afghanistan war, and the paucity of appealing options gnawed at him. […] Trump’s private deliberations – detailed in interviews with more than a dozen senior administration officials and outside allies – revealed a president unattached to any particular foreign-policy doctrine, but willing to be persuaded as long as he could be seen as a strong and decisive leader. This sounds familiar, which is part of the problem with Trump’s failing presidency. On practically every issue, the president is “unattached to any particular” policy or substantive preference. Throughout the health care debate, for example, Trump said he simply wanted to sign a piece of legislation, regardless of its contents or outcomes. What’s more, the president clashed bitterly with Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull over refugees, not because Trump had any particular substantive concerns, but because, as the American president told his Australian counterpart, “it makes me look so bad.” This is how Trump seems to evaluate every decision of consequence: as an extension of his personal public-relations branding campaign. And so it comes as no surprise that, as the Washington Post reported, the post-policy president was “willing to be persuaded as long as he could be seen as a strong and decisive leader.” Because as far as Trump is concerned, what else matters?"
