DONALD TRUMP flip-flopped his way into escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan yesterday after basing much of his election campaign on pulling US forces out.

The US president, who berated his predecessor Barack Obama continually for not ending the war, succumbed to his generals’ demands to increase US troop levels, initially by a further 4,000.

“My original instinct was to pull out,” he confessed, claiming to have been convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen US capacity to prevent the Taliban from ousting the rickety Kabul government.