Thursday, October 19, 2017

Frank Gaffney: Abandoning Kurds in Iraq Is a ‘Strategic Mistake of Epic Proportions’

Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about Kurdish independence in Iraq, the Iran nuclear deal’s continued survival after decertification, and the rising strategic threat of China.
Marlow began by asking if the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s allegedly insensitive remarks to the widow of U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in a terrorist ambush in Nigeria last week, and President Trump’s assertion that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, was delinquent in making condolence calls to the families of fallen soldiers, was a manufactured media distraction.
“Any time you’re talking about the fallen and their loved ones, it’s serious, of course,” Gaffney replied. “It is also the case that I think what we’ve watched is now an information warfare operation run by the mainstream media against this presidency, along with an awful lot of other folks, of course – and to some extent, in fairness, run by the President of the United States against the mainstream media.”
“You’ve got distractions being introduced on both sides,” he continued, indicating that he would prefer to “stay with the things that really matter.”
Marlow turned to the conflict between independence-seeking Kurds and the Iraqi government, which launched military operations against Kurdish positions this week with the assistance of Iran-backed Shiite militia forces. Marlow expressed concern that the Trump administration is remaining neutral while the Kurds, a vital U.S. battlefield ally in the successful war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, are assaulted by Baghdad and Tehran.
Gaffney said it was “tragic” and a “strategic mistake of great proportions” for President Trump to withhold his support from the Kurds.
“Their enemies are our enemies, virtually without exception,” he noted. “The Kurds are surrounded by nations that are not just hostile to them, but hostile to us.” READ MORE