WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US Senate majority leader Mitch
McConnell Friday attacked President Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops
from Syria as “a strategic nightmare” that will help Washington’s foes and
hurt its allies.
“Withdrawing US forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake,” McConnell,
the top Republican in Congress, wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington
Post.
“It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our
enemies, and weaken important alliances.”
His comments come after Trump Wednesday defended his decision to pull US
troops out of Syria as “strategically brilliant.”
McConnell, usually a staunch supporter of the president, had earlier in the
month condemned Trump’s withdrawal of troops from northeast Syria, which
sparked a week-long Turkish offensive against the Kurds who were allied with
the US in the fight against Islamic State.
Fighting has continued despite a temporary ceasefire Vice President Mike
Pence brokered with Ankara.
“The combination of a US pullback and the escalating Turkish-Kurdish
hostilities is creating a strategic nightmare for our country,” McConnell
wrote in his opinion piece.
“Even if the five-day ceasefire announced Thursday holds, events of the
past week have set back the United States’ campaign against the Islamic State
and other terrorists,” he said.
McConnell did not mention Trump by name, though he did liken the Syria
withdrawal to the foreign policy of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack
Obama.
“We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama’s
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon
our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won,” McConnell
wrote.
“America’s wars will be ‘endless’ only if America refuses to win them,” he
added in an apparent jab at Trump’s insistence that the withdrawal was
necessary “to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars.”
The offensive has killed more than 500 people, including dozens of
civilians, while some 300,000 civilians have been displaced within Syria,
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Turkey agreed to suspend its offensive for five days in northern Syria
while Kurdish fighters withdraw from the area, following high-stakes talks
with Pence in Ankara.