Peter Galbraith on Trump’s Syria Decision

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Because as General Petraeus has pointed out just in the last few hours, that yes, in — in Syria, the — the caliphate has been defeated, but the entire ISIS is not destroyed, as the president claims and as people want. It hasn`t happened yet. The inspector general is basically saying that despite losing its territorial caliphate, the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and was resurging in Syria. It states that there are about 14,000 to 18,000 ISIS fighters remaining in Syria and Iraq. So on the issue, which is to destroy the capability of ISIS — I mean, just speak about that as well.

PETER GALBRAITH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR: Well, as — as you pointed out, I was just there, just talking to Kurdish security officials in Iraq. ISIS is very much resurgent in Iraq, in the areas around Mosu, in Anbar, it`s in — in the areas around Kirkuk, it`s staging options. Of course one reason it`s doing this is that the dispute between — split between Sunnis and Shiites has not been reconciled, it`s not going to be reconciled, so there`s a well of resentment in the Sunni community. That`s what allowed ISIS to get there in the first place and that`s fuelling its revival. And — and in Syria, the Kurds have the situation pretty well under control, although there have been some attacks and some bombings. But you — you mentioned 14,000 to 18,000 fighters on the loose. There are another 10,000 fighters who are in prisons. I`ve visited these prisons. They`re being held 20 to a cell. But you know, the Kurds are not — it`s not a state that — it`s not like they have the capability to maintain all of this. They are not getting significant financial help from the — from the United States or anybody else to run these prisons. And so you have to imagine that if there`s an attack from Turkey, you`re going to see people who are guarding the prisons going up to the front line. So just add another 10,000 ISIS fighters to the — the group that are already there. And never mind also, you know, there are a lot of women ISIS fighters and – – and — or ISIS women in some of these camps, 100,000 family members, and some of them are pretty tough militants as well. I mean, this whole thing could reignite if we are not going to be supporting the people who have been our allies. And again, it has to be emphasized, at such a low cost. This is not Iraq in 2003 on, this is not Afghanistan. This is a place where there`ve been at most 2,000 Americans and just a handful of casualties.