Trump blames Clinton for "mess" in the Middle East

In the most watched presidential debate in US history since Jimmy Carter opposed Ronald Reagan in the eighties, Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton that she was responsible for the “mess” in the Middle East.

“You look at the Middle East, it’s a total mess, under your direction, to a large extent”, Trump told Clinton in their first televised debate ahead of November’s election.

Trump went on to blame the rise of Daesh on Clinton and Obama’s decision to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Daesh “wouldn’t have formed if (more) troops had been left behind”, he said.

The Republican presidential candidate would not reveal his plan for defeating Daesh. “You’re telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you’ve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life”, said Trump, using another acronym for Daesh.

Clinton said that to fight Daesh the US needs to work with tech companies and target their online activities at the same time as supporting Arab and Kurdish partners: “”I think we need do much more with our tech companies to prevent ISIS and their operatives from being able to use the internet, to radicalise, even direct people in our country and Europe and elsewhere, but we also have to intensify our air strikes against ISIS [Daesh] and eventually support our Arab and Kurdish partners to be able to actually take out ISIS [Daesh] in Raqqa”.

The Democratic presidential candidate added that the fight against Daesh is making progress: “we’re hoping within a year we’ll be able to push them out of Iraq and really squeeze them in Syria.”

People took to Twitter to express dismay that Syria, the worst tragedy since World War II, was not mentioned in the debate.

Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton greet one another as they take the stage for their first debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, US September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst