After meeting president, Lindsey Graham says Trump is now vowing to stay and ‘destroy’ IS before leaving Syria and to make sure ‘Iran doesn’t become the big winner of our leaving’
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A senior Republican senator said Sunday that President Donald Trump had promised to stay in Syria to finish the job of destroying the Islamic State group — just days after announcing he would be withdrawing troops immediately.
“The president understands the need to finish the job,” Graham told reporters outside the White House after what he described as a two-hour lunch meeting.
“He told me some things I didn’t know that made me feel a lot better about where we’re headed in Syria,” the South Carolina lawmaker said.
When Trump tweeted on December 19 that “we have defeated ISIS in Syria,” several military and security experts said he was overstating the case, and warned against a hasty withdrawal.
‘Thinking long and hard’
Graham said Trump was “thinking long and hard about Syria and how to withdraw the forces” after ensuring that ISIS is destroyed, that US-allied Kurdish forces are protected and that “Iran doesn’t become the big winner of our leaving.”
Graham, who as a member of the Armed Services committee has frequently visited US troops in combat zones, was once a frequent critic of Trump but, reversing course, now frequently defends him and seems to have gained privileged access to the president’s ear.
The senator’s remarks after the White House meeting were considerably modulated from his tone earlier in the day, when he told ABC television’s “This Week” that “if we leave (Syria) now, the Kurds will get slaughtered.”
US Marine Corps tactical vehicles are seen driving along a road near the town of Tal Baydar in the countryside of Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province on December 21, 2018. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
“I’m going to ask the president to do something that President Obama would never do: reconsider,” he said.
Graham said he knew Trump was “frustrated” by his limited options in Syria.
“The president is reconsidering how we would do this,” Graham said.
“I get it. We’re not the policemen of the world here.”
He added: “I’m going to ask him to sit down with his generals and reconsider how to do this. Slow it down. Make sure we get it right.”
A Trump announcement?
Kellyanne Conway, a close Trump adviser, seemed to hint that the president might be rethinking his withdrawal plans.
“In Iraq he had a closed-door meeting and he said watch what happens… Watch what happens because he’s got plans and I won’t get ahead of his announcement, but he did want me to convey that,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump’s abrupt decision on Syria stunned regional players, US politicians of both parties and military leaders, who expressed surprise that such a major decision would be announced after apparently so little advance consultation, against the advice of his national security advisers — and on Twitter.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis speaks during a change of command ceremony at the US Southern Command headquarters on November 26, 2018, in Doral, Florida. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned following the announcement, which came on the same day that US officials said Trump was also planning a significant drawdown in Afghanistan, with some reports suggesting as many as half of the 14,000 troops could leave.
Graham warned at the time that a reduction now of US forces in war-torn Afghanistan risked “paving the way toward a second 9/11.”
Another prominent critic of the move was retired US army general Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, he told ABC that the dual drawdowns could seriously weaken US influence in the region.
“We have a tumultuous regime or region (in Syria) that now has a Russian presence which had been out for about 30 years,” he said.
“Iran has increased influence across the region now. If you pull American influence out, you’re likely to have greater instability.”
Similarly, he said, Trump’s planned drawdown in Afghanistan could seriously undercut American leverage there.
“Just when we were starting to sit down with the Taliban, just as we were starting to begin negotiations, he basically traded away the biggest leverage point we have,” McChrystal added.
So you say. I think there is another reason Mattis quit. It will all become evident this month.
@ Ted Belman:
Yes so much so that he fooled Mathis into quitting!
Bear Klein Said:
It is my contention that it was intentionally so.
I focused on what he didn’t say.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, at best Trumps messaging or communication about the withdrawal in particular from Syria was completely inadequate and inaccurate in part. His Defense Chief certainly did not agree and would have know at least as much as you or I, no? Also his Special Coordinator on ISIS would not have left in a huff!
Yes, Trump had some plans to substitute Arab soldiers for the US troops. Not exactly equal. His statement about having defeated ISIS was not accurate. When he got to Iraq the commanders there told him that.
Afghanistan troop withdrawal has not received much flack from what I have observed. It appears in the news infrequently.
Yes you are an exception.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted-Please don’t include me in the “everybody’…that’s generalizing…which you are against, as I saw in an earlier post on a different matter… People listen to you because you’re very much more involved politically, whereas I am very much not. But we often come to the same conclusions… Coincidence…??
adamdalgliesh Said:
adamdalgliesh Said:
Once again, you are thinking the worse. Similarly most people are of the opinion that Trump’s deal of the century wont fly. This is because you don’t even consider that Trump knows what he is doing and his critics don’t.
For instance, maybe Trump is going to win the war in Syria by getting Syria to flip ie return to the arab fold and reject Iran and Turkey.
Or maybe trump is betting on the Jordan Option rather than a variation of the peace proposals heretofore.
@ adamdalgliesh:
You still don’t get it . Trump was not being stupid or impulsive or whatever people want to criticize him for. I stood by him throughout. I said everyone was jumping to negative conclusions without any real understanding of what was going on. Even now, don’t say he blundered and is now willing to correct. Better to say, was he really so stupid in the first place? Perhaps he announced the troop withdrawal knowing he was going to reverse his position a few days later. Do not set sell him short.
The U.S. cannot defeat its enemies in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan without a massive increase in troop deployments in all three countries. And there is no support that in the United States, for many reasons that there is no space to explain here. In the absence of a viable strategy for achieving victory, keeping small U.S. forces in these countries where they will continue to suffer casualties is also not viable strategy. All it accomlishes is embittered, wounded GIS returning home feeling they have been misused. I don’t see how Trump has any responsible choice but to disengage.
Trump seems willing to modify short-term withdrawal plans under pressure from his own party, but his long-term strategic choice for withdrawing from areas where America has only small forces in combat zones, not enough to defeat the enemies,has not changed, as Graham pointed out.