November 20, 2019
Panel Discussion: Repairing the Damage: The future of U.S. relations with Syrian Kurdish partners and the fight against ISIS
Thank you Dr. Karim. Let me echo what my friend Chris van Hollen said and Senator Blackburn said. It’s important that you’re here. It’s important that your voices be heard. It’s now a month and a half since the President United States in one phone call undermine our Kurdish allies. Completely caught the American military, the American intelligence community, totally off guard and threw the region into chaos. As a result of that telephone conversation, men and women of the SDF and other Kurdish allies who literally up until that phone call in many cases were standing with American military are now subject to being killed and murdered. We’ve heard from Senator Van Hollen already. His comments, about what we’re seeing now is I say this from my position as vice chairman of the intelligence committee picking up on how we can monitor. The ISIS prisoners who are detainees who are escaping, who are fleeing. I think it’s in many ways remarkable the Kurdish forces still keep as many of them incarcerated. But Senator van Hollens’ comments about the DOD inspector general support yesterday ,gives that independent validation that this move will lead to the reestablishment of ISIS in the region. That is not in the best interest of the Kurds, it is not in the best interest of the United States, It is not in the best interest of reasonable people throughout that region, and we will be paying a price for that for some time. I also think the president’s decision to abandon the Kurds will be a disaster for American foreign policy for decades. How do we go back to allies or potential allies in a very troubled region and say, if you align with us and promote democratic values and promote human rights and stand with us, we will stand with you.One with no warning in what appeared to be almost a whim, a complete reversal of American policy took place. Both of my colleagues have said, who are the winners? Iran, Erdogan, Assad, Vladimir Putin, ISIS. These are not allies of the United States or the Kurdish people. One of the things one way Senator Van Hollen Senator Blackburn said, one way to the United States take action is to bring some level of sanction upon the Turks and the Erdogan government. I like Senator Van Hollen leads those kinds of actions when terms of military action taken into that safe zone shouldn’t be rewarded with a White House visit. But that that’s now in the past what we need to do. One thing that is the bare minimum we should do is support legislation that I’ve put forward called the Syrian allies protection act. What that says is very simply that the men and women, Kurdish men and women allies who had been working with the United States military, our intelligence services for at least six months ought to be protected on a going forward basis.
We put forward programs like that to protect particularly translator, Iraqi translators, Afghany translators. Don’t we owe the same obligation to those Kurdish forces who would no warning at all? Were left with frankly no viable path. Whether it would be danger from the Turkish militia, whether it be danger from ISIS escapees, whether it be danger from Assad forces. Do we really think that even if some other forces may be able to further align back with the Assad regime, do you really think the Assad regime is going to take somebody that worked with the American government?
So the basic act of decency ought to be to ensure that these individuals are protected. We’ve got a program that’s already been in place. There’s appropriate vetting. Those folks who work with American military and the intelligence community ought to get special immigrant visas. They ought to be relocated in region or if not relocated in the United States with their families. It is what a just and compassionate nation should and must do. Now, my hope would be, and one of my disappointments has been, I went down we have kind of, Senator Van Hollen is a great co-sponsor of this legislation. We have the ability the senators to go down and go to the floor of the Senate and in a sense ask what’s called unanimous consent. When we say, can we take a time out? It’s not like we’re doing much on the floor of the Senate these days anyway and say, since this would be common decency, shouldn’t we all agree that we should pass this unanimous?
Unfortunately, somebody on the Republican side objected. So my hope would be when the panels, and as you try to think about bringing forward this message to congressional representatives, all across every day, that we waste not passing the Syrian allies protection act, the very people who worked with our military, the very people who we’ve heard, oftentimes the military is asked to move out so quickly. They didn’t even have a chance to say thank you or goodbye. These people on a daily basis are being killed. So the most immediate thing we can do is put in place, at least what we did for the, similar to what we did with the Afghani and Iraqi translators and others. We think we could do is show that at least the honor of the American military and the intelligence community will be honored in protection, protecting folks who work with us. We will not leave them behind. But we need immediate action from the Congress. And I commit to work with Senator Van Hollen and people of Goodwill of both political parties to get this done and never ever forget the contribution of the Syrian forces in that region. Thank you all very much.