Faced with mounting criticism and a House resolution against his decision to abandon Kurdish fighters in Syria, President Trump doubled down on Wednesday, saying Turkey’s cross-border attack on the Kurds is not his — or America’s — concern.
“That has nothing to do with us,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as Italy’s visiting president looked on.
Trump “also falsely claimed the Kurds ‘are much safer now,’” reports CNN.
Shortly after the president made those statements, the House passed a resolution “formally rebuking” him. The vote was overwhelming and bipartisan: 354-60, though all 60 votes against the measure came from Republicans, reports The Hill.
Trump was “all but washing his hands of the Kurdish fighters who have fought alongside American troops against the Islamic State [ISIS] for years but have now been left to fend for themselves,” says the New York Times.
“They’re not angels,” Trump said of the Kurds. In fact, he said, Kurdish fighters are “probably … more of a terrorist threat in many ways than ISIS.” Posters on Twitter called that a “Turkish talking point.”
The president’s words appeared to undermine the peace mission of a top-ranking U.S. delegation headed for Turkey. On orders from Trump himself, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien hope to convince President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to declare a cease-fire and end his offensive.
That seems unlikely.
In a speech to the Turkish parliament Wednesday, Erdogan rejected the U.S. offer to broker a peace and said Kurdish fighters should “drop their weapons” and withdraw from a 20-mile-wide area along the Syria’s northern border.
“Nobody can stop us,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), normally one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, again sharply criticized the president’s words and actions on Twitter, saying the Syria withdrawal could be “a disaster worse than President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq.”
Trump is trying to fix a problem of his own creation, said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), according to the Times.
“It’s very hard to understand why it is the vice president and secretary of state and others are going to talk with Erdogan and Turkey,” Romney told reporters. “It’s like the farmer who lost all his horses and goes to now shut the barn door.”
Trump “dismissed concerns that his decision has opened the way for Russia, Iran and the Syrian government to move into the abandoned territory and reassert their influence,” the Times says.
“I wish them all a lot of luck,” Trump said. “If Russia wants to get involved in Syria, that’s really up to them.” Russian ground and air forces have actively supported Syria’s authoritarian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad since 2015.
