Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This is to CBS I in the world. I'm John Bachelors with Gordon Chang at Gordon G Chang and we welcome Rebecca Grant President of Iris Independent Research visiting a visiting fellow of the Lexington Institute,

to comment on a story that is news and yet it's a larger story of West Africa, the

Sahel, reaching into East Africa all at play.

This is from the hill.

Niger ordered U.S. troops to leave after Biden officials warned about ties to Russia, Iran.

This information from the Pentagon.

There's a lot to unpack there.

Nizhira recently went through what you'd have to say is a transition from democracy to strong man rule.

Niger, however, was host to a major base for the U.S. operating UAVs and intelligence gathering out of West Africa against the jihadists.

Once upon a time the threat to the region, no more the only threat.

Rebecca, good evening to you.

This suddenly occurs some months ago and the second step was always, what about the American

base there that was digging in.

Loss of this base, is it a surprise to the State Department?

Does it mean that our combat against the jihadist has ended

because both Islamic State and al-Qaeda will be watching.

Good evening to you.

Good evening they most certainly will be watching and remember our mission in

Africa officially is to counter violent extremism.

And so you always hear about the VEOs,

the violent extremist organizations.

And yet more and more we find ourselves needing to think about China and

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