Senator Graham Says Iran Shouldn't Pick Up Spoils of Syria Exit

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Lindsey Graham said the U.S. should slow down its planned exit from Syria to make sure that regional rival Iran doesn’t emerge as the biggest winner in the process.

“Syria is not just death and sand, Syria is a strategically important country in a volatile region,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told Bloomberg in an interview in Ankara. “Our planned withdrawal has to make sure that Iran does not become the biggest winner by us leaving.”

The U.S. must stop Iran incursion into northeast Syria, a scenario that would see “all fields that belonged to the Syrian people fall in the hands of Iranians” and “that will undercut the president’s sanctions on the Iranian regime,” he said.

Washington shouldn’t leave too much for allies such as Turkey to deal with following its planned troop pullout from the war-torn country, he said. While the exit should serve American objectives such as containing Iran and insuring Islamic State militants don’t make a powerful comeback, he said concerns of NATO ally Turkey over Kurdish militants in Syria should also be taken into account.

Kurdish Distance

U.S. backing of Kurdish militant group YPG “has been a nightmare for Turkey,” Graham said. “Here is the promise I made to President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan: I’ll try my best to fix the problem we’ve created for your country.”

The 2016 decision by the Obama administration to arm YPG in Syria was “shortsighted,” Graham said. In recent months, the White House has sought to distance itself from Kurdish allies.

Trump’s abrupt decision to exit Syria -- apparently made during a call with Erdogan in December -- stunned most U.S. allies, but was welcomed in Turkey. Yet repeated public calls by Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton not to attack “Kurds” stoked tensions between the NATO allies.

The U.S. has been adamant that its relationship with the Kurdish militia is tactical and temporary and aimed at defeating the Islamic State, a task that no other group in Syria can be expected to achieve. Turkish officials have objected to that relationship, even on a temporary basis, saying that the YPG is simply the Syrian branch of a separatist terrorist organization it’s been battling against for over three decades.

Graham spoke to Bloomberg and held a press conference in the Turkish capital a day after a meeting with Erdogan that lasted over two hours.

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