President Donald Trump announced he would be pulling U.S. troops away from the Syrian-Turkish border after speaking with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Sunday. The decision has received bipartisan disapproval, since the move will allow the Turkish military to push out Kurdish forces near the border. The Kurds have been an ally to the United States in fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday to explain why Trump's order is being criticized on all sides.
"The effort we were making with Kurds against ISIS was successful and it was working, so there's really no explanation for us leaving," Kayyem said. "One of the explanations for why there hasn't been massive ISIS attacks in Europe or the United States in the last couple years is because of the denigration of ISIS's geographic footholds in Iraq and Syria."
Questions arise about whether ISIS will regain power with the removal of combined U.S. and Kurdish forces from the Syrian border, Kayyem added.
"I don't know what this means for ISIS recruitment or radicalization, but it's certainly not good news," she said. "We've given ISIS a new narrative, one they haven't had for several years."
Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
