The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today in a rebuke of President Trump’s rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
The measure, presented as an amendment to a greater Middle East policy bill, declares that the Islamic State’s presence and activity in both countries continues to pose a serious threat to the United States, and was a striking reprimand of the president from a GOP that has become increasingly comfortable expressing its opposition to Trump’s foreign policy through votes on the Senate floor.
That it was spearheaded by McConnell (R-Ky.), who often waits to cross Trump until there is overwhelming momentum in his conference , indicates how deeply the president’s announcements broke faith within the party.
Republicans spent years accusing Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, of pursuing capricious troop withdrawals and have refused to defend this president’s efforts to do the same.
“I believe the threats remain. ISIS and al-Qaeda have yet to be defeated, and American national security interests require continued commitment to our mission there,” McConnell said today, before the 68 to 23 vote.
But the measure divided Senate Democrats, with many arguing that rebuking Trump was not worth the cost of greenlighting endless war.
“This amendment is not the right way for us to proceed as a means of correcting Trump’s backward policies,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “It could, frankly, get us even more deeply mired into a series of conflicts in the Middle East.”
Nearly every Senate Democrat expected to run for president in 2020 also voted against the amendment.
In December , Trump announced he would be withdrawing American military personnel from Syria, stating in a Twitter post that: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency.” A month later, ISIS claimed credit for an attack in Syria that left four Americans dead.
The backlash from Republicans has been steady , with some of the president’s closest allies warning him about the dangers of leaving before al-Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates are expunged.
Talk of an impulsive pullout from Syria has incited fears of an ISIS resurgence there and growing concern for the safety of Kurdish fighters who have partnered with U.S. forces.
Some lawmakers also have warned that a vacuum caused by the United States’ departure likely would be filled by forces aligned with Iran, posing a threat to ally Israel.
Today’s vote comes as U.S. negotiations with the Taliban have raised the prospect of an eventual withdrawal, too, from Afghanistan, where U.S. forces have been deployed for more than 17 years.
Some Republicans stressed that the fringe benefit to Iran is why Trump was wrong to believe that the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan are problems for “other people.”
“This is not other people’s wars. This is ours. These people, who are going to operate in these safe havens and Iran, we are their target,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “If you give them any belief that they have a chance to win because you have withdrawn . . . I believe you increase the chance of war.
While the Senate’s Thursday vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts Senate Republicans on the record as being firmly at odds with Trump’s Middle East policy.