President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pull back U.S. troops from northern Syria drew quick criticism Monday from some of his closest allies in Congress as well as Kurdish fighters who would essentially be abandoned to face a likely Turkish assault after fighting alongside American forces against the Islamic State.
The announcement threw the military situation in Syria into fresh chaos and injected deeper uncertainty into U.S. relations with European allies. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it “a disaster,” while Syria’s Kurds accused the U.S. of turning its back on allies and risking gains made in the yearslong fight against ISIS.
Trump defended the move in a series of tweets, acknowledging that “the Kurds fought with us,” but adding that they “were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so.”
Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation and author of Wiki at War: Conflict in a Socially Networked World and Private Sector, Public Wars – Contractors in Combat, Lt. Col. James Carafano, discusses the removal of US troops in Syria with Dan & Amy