President Trump’s declaration of victory over the Islamic State in Syria is premature, according to a top British defense official.
“I strongly disagree,” Tobias Ellwood, a lawmaker and Britain’s deputy defense minister, tweeted Wednesday. “It has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive.”
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Ellwood was responding to Trump’s message that “ we have defeated ISIS in Syria.” Trump said fighting ISIS was his “only reason” for allowing U.S. forces to operate in the country since he took office.
But Ellwood’s retort is also consistent with public comments from Trump’s State Department about its strategy over the last several days.
“If we’ve learned one thing over the years, enduring defeat of a group like this means you can’t just defeat their physical space and then leave,” Brett McGurk, the special envoy for Syria, told reporters at the State Department last week. “So, obviously, it would be reckless if we were just to say, well, the physical caliphate is defeated, so we can just leave now.”
Trump reportedly changed course after a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been angry about U.S. cooperation with a group of Kurdish fighters that he worries will try to carve a new state out of parts of Turkey and Syria. The Kurds, known in Syria as the YPG, have been one of the key local fighting forces in the fight to defeat the Islamic State.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded coolly to the decision, after conversations Wednesday with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“They made it clear that they have other ways of expressing their influence in the area,” Netanyahu tweeted. “This is, of course, an American decision. We will study its timetable, how it will be implemented and – of course – its implications for us. In any case we will take care to maintain the security of Israel and to defend ourselves in this area.”
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President Trump’s declaration of victory over the Islamic State in Syria is premature, according to a top British defense official.https://t.co/4HpVxZVQn9
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 20, 2018
Trump has a habit of alienating our allies but appeasing our enemies. Along with appeasing Russia he has been trying to appease Turkey lately as well. I feel sorry for the Turkish Cleric that Trump is about to throw under the bus. It won’t end well for him.
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