WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pull U.S. troops out of Northern Syria late Sunday night has drawn harsh rebukes from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, raised alarm bells among America’s allies across the globe and sent the Pentagon and the State Department scrambling to contain the fallout.
While the president has defended the decision as part of his longtime promise to end U.S. military involvement in the region, even his staunchest supporters at home warned that it has essentially given Turkey a green light for a major military offensive against the Kurdish minority there, a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State militant group and a longtime target of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The president has denied that the U.S. is abandoning the Kurds, tweeting on Tuesday that, “we may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters.”