President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, calling it "strategically brilliant," and denied giving Turkey a "green light" to launch operations against Kurdish militants.
"President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan's decision didn't surprise me because he's wanted to do that for a long time," Trump told reporters at the White House. "He's been building up troops on the border with Syria for a long time."
"Turkey has gone into Syria. If Turkey goes into Syria, that's between Turkey and Syria -- it's not between Turkey and the United States, like a lot of stupid people would like you to believe."
And he minimized the escape of Islamic State fighters who had been held by the Kurds as an attempt to "make us look like, 'Oh, gee, we have to get right back in there.'"
"Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers fighting other people's wars," Trump said. "I want to get out of the Middle East."
"The people of South Carolina don't want us to get into a war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with Syria," he said. "Let them fight their own wars. They've been fighting for a thousand years."