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Trump ally Graham will ask president to reconsider Syria withdrawal | Trump ally Graham will ask president to reconsider Syria withdrawal |
(about 1 hour later) | |
A senior Republican senator said on Sunday he would try to persuade Donald Trump to reconsider his order for a total US military pullout from Syria. A retired commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, meanwhile, criticised reported plans to withdraw thousands of Americans from that country and said the president himself was “immoral”. | |
Trump unmoved on border wall demand as shutdown enters ninth day | Trump unmoved on border wall demand as shutdown enters ninth day |
Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, warned that removing all US forces from Syria would hurt US security by allowing Islamic State to rebuild, betraying US-backed Kurdish fighters and enhancing Iran’s ability to threaten Israel. | |
Retired general Stanley McChrystal, who commanded US and Nato forces in Afghanistan for about a year, said withdrawing up to half the 14,000 American troops still serving in the country would reduce the incentive for the Taliban to talk peace after more than 17 years of war. Talk of a pullout, he said, meant the US had “basically traded away the biggest leverage point we have”. Trump had also “rocked” America’s Afghan allies, he said. | |
Graham is an influential lawmaker who sits on the Senate armed services committee and is an ally of Trump, although he has opposed some foreign policy decisions. He has worked to get close to the president in a manner far removed from the early stages of the 2016 election, when the two men exchanged fierce insults. | |
Earlier this month, Graham used emotive language when he warned that the Syria withdrawal and mooted drawdown in Afghanistan could pave “the way toward a second 9/11”. On Sunday he was more measured, saying he would ask Trump “to sit down with his generals and reconsider how to do this”. | |
“Slow this down,” he said, speaking to CNN’s State of the Union. “Make sure we get it right. Make sure Isis never comes back. Don’t turn Syria over to the Iranians. I want to fight the war in the enemy’s backyard, not ours.” | |
Graham praised Trump, who visited American troops in Iraq this week, for announcing that a US force would remain there. But he said Isis, while holding only slivers of territory, remained a potent threat in north-eastern Syria. | |
“That’s why we need to keep some of our troops there,” he said. | “That’s why we need to keep some of our troops there,” he said. |
The Department of Defense says it is considering plans for a “deliberate and controlled withdrawal” from Syria. One option, according to a person familiar with the discussions, is for a 120-day pull-out period. | |
Graham has joined other Republicans and Democrats in criticizing Trump’s order for the pullout of all 2,000 US troops deployed to support mostly Kurdish anti-Isis fighters. Turkey views the Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, as a branch of its own Kurdish separatist movement and is threatening to launch an offensive against it. | |
US commanders are recommending YPG fighters be allowed to keep US-supplied weapons, according to US officials. That proposal would likely anger Turkey, where national security adviser John Bolton will hold talks this week. | |
Trump decided on the Syria withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, ignoring the advice of top national security aides and without consulting lawmakers or international allies. The decision prompted defense secretary Jim Mattis to resign, submitting a letter to Trump that also referenced reports of his Afghanistan plan and criticised his treatment of allies. | |
The halfway point: what have two years of Trump's wrecking ball done to America? | The halfway point: what have two years of Trump's wrecking ball done to America? |
McChrystal appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday. He said: “If you tell the Taliban that we are absolutely leaving on date certain, cutting down, weakening ourselves, their incentives to try to cut a deal drop dramatically.” | |
He was worried, he said, that the Afghan people would lose confidence in the US. | |
“I think we probably rocked them,” he said. | |
Asked what he would say if he were ever asked, like a number of other retired generals, to join the Trump administration, McChrystal said: “I think it’s important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest, who tell the truth as best they know it.” | |
Asked if he thought Trump was immoral, he said: “I think he is.” | |
McChrystal has criticized a sitting president before. Barack Obama accepted his resignation in June 2010, after he made scathing remarks in a magazine article about officials including Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden. | |
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