Trump Administration ‘Playing Checkers’ In Syria While Others ‘Playing Chess,’ Says GOP Lawmaker
While it’s not common for Republican politicians in Washington, D.C., to speak out against President Donald Trump‘s policies, his handling of the Syria situation has seemingly generated more push back from his own party than any other controversy since winning the White House.
According to The Hill, Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd took a shot at the president on Sunday at both the president’s pullout of U.S. forces in northern Syria and the recent announcement of a temporary ceasefire with Turkey that was supposed to allow friendly Kurdish forces time to escape before a more permanent version of a ceasefire was set in place.
On CBS’s Face The Nation, Hurd said the administration’s ceasefire agreement with Turkey “looks more like terms of surrender than a peace deal.”
The GOP lawmaker doubled down on his criticism of the Trump administration’s maneuvers since the Syrian debacle began, insinuating that America’s enemies were far ahead of the U.S. in the realm of strategy concerning the region.
“And unfortunately, our enemies and our adversaries — like Iran, Russia, Turkey — they’re playing chess and unfortunately, this administration is playing checkers,” Hurd added.
The president has taken an unprecedented amount of criticism for his decision to pull U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria, with both Democrats and Republicans condemning him for leaving Kurdish soldiers — forces who fought side-by-side with American troops to defeat Islamic State fighters — open for attack by Turkey’s military.
Another point of concern by the president’s critics is the strong possibility that Islamic State fighters will regroup in the war-torn region, erasing years of progress made by Kurdish and U.S. military forces.
Hurd echoed the concern that Islamic State terrorists would likely come back to the area now that they don’t have to worry as much about U.S. troops.
“[Islamic State] is going to come back,” he said. “We know that there is about 30,000 [Islamic State] fighters that are throughout that region.”
Because of this disastrous decision to pull U.S. troops from northern Syria and abandon the Kurds, and all the actions and inactions that led up to this decision, we have let our friends down, hurt our national security and ceded leadership in the region to Russia and Iran. pic.twitter.com/MwQDWJJ2Iq
— Will Hurd (@WillHurd) October 16, 2019
Though the lawmaker is set to retire after his term is up — which he announced after Trump made disparaging remarks about several minority female Democratic lawmakers earlier this year — he offered a bit of advice to the administration during his CBS interview on Sunday.
“I think what we could be doing now is bringing in some of the heads of the military, the heads of the intelligence service, the heads of our humanitarian organizations to talk about what are we going to do to prevent [Islamic State] from becoming resurgent,” Hurd suggested.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, conservative CNN pundit S.E. Cupp claimed that Trump’s handling of the Syria situation could “undo his presidency.”
