Former Trump Envoy: Syria Withdrawal Is 'Haphazard' And 'Almost Unprecedented'

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/08/768257239/former-trump-envoy-syria-withdrawal-is-haphazard-and-almost-unprecedented

As President Trump defends his decision to pull away some U.S. troops from Syria's border with Turkey, the president's former envoy for the fight against the co-called Islamic State is raising alarms about how potentially destabilizing the move can be for the region.

Brett McGurk, who resigned from Trump's national security team in December and also served in the Obama and Bush administrations, tells NPR that Trump making such a drastic announcement shortly after speaking with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned a vital foreign policy decision into a potential crisis.

"Presidents do a lot of things, but the most consequential are decisions of war and peace like this, and you can't make decisions on a haphazard basis after a single call with a foreign leader," McGurk says on NPR's Morning Edition on Tuesday. "This is almost unprecedented."

Trump's decision to give Turkey more room to operate at the border contradicts recommendations from top officials in the Pentagon and the State Department. It's also raising concerns that a Turkish invasion into northern Syria could endanger U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, leave thousands of jihadist prisoners unguarded — and even lead to a new strengthening of the Islamic State.

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