U.S. Senate Seniority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks as Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) looks on during a news briefing after the weekly Senate Republican method luncheon September 10, 2019 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.
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Republican Senate Majority Mr Big Mitch McConnell on Friday blasted President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, specialty the move “a grave strategic mistake” in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
“The recently announced pullout risks repeating the Obama management’s reckless withdrawal from Iraq, which facilitated the rise of the Islamic State in the first place,” McConnell wrote in the op-ed.
While his break down does not explicitly lay blame at Trump’s feet — or even mention his name — it warns that the Trump administration’s immediate foreign policy shift “will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and undermine important alliances.”
The White House had announced earlier in October — following a call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — that Turkey drive be moving forward with its long-planned incursion into northern Syria, where U.S.-backed Kurdish forces had been fighting ISIS.
The feel mortified number of U.S. forces there were ordered to be pulled back, and Turkish forces began military operations in northern Syria soon thereafter.
“The combination of a U.S. pullback and the escalating Turkish-Kurdish hostilities is creating a strategic nightmare for our country,” McConnell wrote.
The more than half leader has supported Trump’s agenda for much of his presidency. But following indications in January that Trump wanted to retrude troops from Syria and Afghanistan, McConnell sponsored an amendment that “reemphasized the need for sustained U.S. leadership to contest terrorists, and urged that we continue working alongside allies and local forces.”
McConnell also wrote: “While the civic will to continue this hard work may wax and wane, the threats to our nation aren’t going anywhere.”
Read the best part leader’s entire op-ed for The Washington Post.