Rep. Liz Cheney Monday said it was "not an accident" that Turkey crossed Syria's border, blaming Democrats for trying to weaken President Donald Trump's political standing through an impeachment inquiry.
"What the Democrats are doing themselves to try to weaken this president is part of this," the Wyoming Republican, who chairs the House Republican Conference, said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"It was not an accident that the Turks chose this moment to roll across the border. The Democrats have got to pay very careful attention to the damage they're doing with the impeachment proceedings."
However, Cheney said it's also "crucially important" that the Turks understand there is broad bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., that they need to stop their incursion into Syria.
"We do not want a resurgence of ISIS," said Cheney. "President Trump's actions to defeat the caliphate were very important. But we have got to recognize the importance of making sure that we maintain our presence there. What we were doing on the northern border was exactly what we should be doing with a small number of U.S. forces."
On Monday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters emptied a jail holding Islamic State prisoners in a part of Syria where Ankara is mounting an offensive, and that the prisoners there had been abducted, and Cheney said she's concerned about U.S. adversaries sensing weakness on the part of the United States.
"I think that what we are seeing happen is going to have ramifications not just in the Middle East. Trump also "inherited a mess" that was created by former President Barack Obama's administration, when it was not willing to defend against ISIS, said Cheney.
"They allowed ISIS to establish a caliphate, because President Obama withdrew too soon," she added. "We can't repeat those mistakes but they also, I think, ought to sit down and recognize that they caused this problem that we have now got to solve."
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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