Gen. David Petraeus expressed concern for Kurdish fighters and the ability to keep the Islamic State at bay after President Trump’s decision to move U.S. troops from northeast Syria.
Petraeus, the 66-year-old former commander of all troops in the Middle East, said Trump’s decision raises questions about America’s commitment to Kurdish forces, who helped beat back ISIS, according to Forces Network.
“It certainly does raise concerns about our level of commitment to the partners, who really did the fighting, and in many cases the dying on the ground, to eliminate the ISIS caliphate and to defeat the Islamic State as an army,” Petraeus said.
“Keep in mind, there are still tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters in groups in north-eastern Syria … very likely trying to establish an insurgent movement as well as to still carry out terrorist attacks,” he added.
Petraeus, who resigned as President Barack Obama’s CIA director after carrying on an affair with, and providing classified information to, his biographer Paula Broadwell, warned that “if you take your eye off the enemy” ISIS could once again emerge in the region.
“While the caliphate is defeated, we have to be very careful not to assume that that means that the ISIS problem is ended. It is not,” he said.
Petraeus is not alone in his criticism of the president. Monday saw a bevy of pushback from both the Left and the Right following the Sunday announcement that the United States would be moving troops out of the region, opening it up to Turkey and the potential slaughter of Kurdish fighters.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called for bipartisan sanctions against Turkey if it invades Syria and said he would move to suspend Turkey’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if it attacks Kurdish forces there.
Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called the decision “a big mistake.”
