Sen. Lindsey Graham railed against President Donald Trump on Monday over the president’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces in Syria, thus abandoning Kurdish allies in the region.
U.S. forces have been fighting ISIS alongside Syria’s Kurdish fighters for years, and the Kurds have already viewed Trump’s Sunday withdrawal decision as abandonment — a result Graham called “a stain on America’s honor.”
“If press reports are accurate this is a disaster in the making,” Graham said, adding that he was working to find out more details on the decision.
* Ensures ISIS comeback.
* Forces Kurds to align with Assad and Iran.
* Destroys Turkey’s relationship with U.S. Congress.
* Will be a stain on America’s honor for abandoning the Kurds.— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 7, 2019
According to Graham, the decision “Ensures ISIS comeback, forces Kurds to align with Assad and Iran, destroys Turkey’s relationship with U.S. Congress, [and] will be a stain on America’s honor for abandoning the Kurds.”
Graham also took to Fox and Friends this morning to speak out on the president’s decision, calling it “a big win for ISIS” among other things.
“This is going to lead to ISIS’ reemergence. [There’s] nothing better for ISIS than to create a conflict between the Kurds and Turkey. The Kurds will now align with [Bashir al] Assad because they have nobody to count on because we abandoned them. So this is a big win for Iran and Assad — a big win for ISIS.”
Graham is targeting Trump’s Sunday decision to back a Turkish military operation in northern Syria, while withdrawing at least 100 U.S forces from the area, which could be part of Trump’s end goal of withdrawing all approximately 1,000 troops in the region – a goal he announced in December 2018.
“If I didn’t see Donald Trump’s name on the tweet I thought it would be Obama’s rationale for getting out of Iraq,” Graham told Fox News.
“This is going to lead to the reemergence of ISIS and the biggest winner of all this will be the Iranians and that’s too bad,” Graham said.
“This impulsive decision by the president has undone all the gains we’ve made, thrown the region into further chaos,” Graham continued. “Iran is licking their chops. And if I’m an ISIS fighter I’ve got a second lease on life. So to those who think ISIS has been defeated you will soon see.”
Graham fired off at least 12 tweets throughout the morning to continue his criticism.
He also vowed to introduce a Senate resolution to reverse Trump’s decision and expects it to receive “strong bipartisan support.”
