Striding across the South Lawn of the White House, Donald Trump, then serving his first presidential term, paused in front of reporters and triumphantly unfurled a sheet of paper.

On it were two maps of Syria.

The first, daubed in blotches of red, showed how much territory Islamic State, the jihadist group also known as Isis, held in the country on the day he won the election in November 2016.

The second map was almost a pristine white, save for a tiny red spot near the town of Baghuz, Islamic State’s final holdout on the banks of the River Euphrates. It would be gone by that evening, Mr Trump predicted.

Although the deadline slipped a smidgen – Baghuz fell four days later, on March 23 2019 – the expulsion of IS from its final Syrian stronghold was undoubtedly among the chief foreign policy achievements of the first Trump presidency.