President Donald Trump's administration is repeating ex-President Barack Obama's mistakes and setting the stage for "ISIS 2.0" by pulling troops out of Syria too soon, Rep. Michael Waltz said Monday.
"A number of their key leaders have already escaped," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "We've set the conditions for ISIS 2.0, and we're repeating the mistakes of the Obama administration which pulled out of Iraq too soon and led to all this in the first place."
This time around, though, the situation could be even worse, warned Waltz, as "we won't have any local allies to fight them again."
"I'm incredibly concerned and disheartened," said Waltz, adding that Trump must "put his foot down" with the Turks."
He said he's joining with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, to put forward a sanctions package against Turkey.
"That's the main tool we have in Congress," said Waltz. "For all the endless war kind of crowd and voices whispering in the president's ear, this is how you create war. Those few hundred American special operators, a few hundred, had effectively kept a lid on this tinderbox and now (Turkish President Recep) Erdogan has put a grenade in Pandora's box and it has blown wide open."
Meanwhile, Waltz, a retired Green Beret, said he's had conversations with Green Berets on the ground in the region and they are "demoralized."
"If (Syrian leader Bashar) Assad and the Syrian army, if the Russians, and if the Kurds are all now fighting this Turkish invasion, who is fighting ISIS?" said Waltz.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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