based. for a few years going back to 2014 in june, when isis took over mosul, the second largest city in iraq, there was a feeling that they were unstoppable, that they were fighting armies that were corrupt and basically incompete incompetent. i was in iraq as they were taking one major iraqi city after another while they were expanding in syria as well. so the removal of that certainly has led many to breathe a sigh of relief. however, the problem is that the fertile soil upon which isis grew and thrived is still there, and that is the autocratic regimes that spread across the middle east that their prisons are basically a breeding ground for people who are disillusioned, have been tortured, have experienced
more dangerous situation. as you recall, we had to put more troops into iraq to stabilize the situation, and isis grew, and that cost us a great deal of money and treasure in lives. so i think that the president ought to reconsider this decision. i think general mattis, secretary of defense mattis believes he should. i think his national security adviser said we were going to stay there for some period of time. it appears that this was the president s decision. it was impulsive as so many of his decisions are, announced on a twitter feed. this is simply not how we ought to conduct our foreign policy, and in this instance, i would hope sincerely that the president would reconsider this decision and understand that our presence is absolutely essential if he wants to, as he has said, confront iran, stabilize syria, defeat isis and not leave a
here illegally and unlawfully and opening borders frankly for those who want to come in in addition to the ones already here. sandra: as you mentioned a busy morning at the white house. the president has a lot on his plate including something he talked about last week, syria. immediate withdrawal from syria. it seems there is some disagreement even within his own advisory council on how to proceed there. is it fair to say the president has agreed to hold off on that at least for now? there is no disagreement. the facts are the president has come in and addressed another problem that has been allowed to fester and grow for decades. isis. you remember president barack obama famously called them the jv team and while his head was in the sand along with that of his administration isis grew, festered and became an international powerhouse of terror. this president came in and said no more. he has crushed the caliphate. close to defeating isis. the president doesn t want american treasur
they give up a bunch of sabs. sacks. they always come back in the fourth quarter and put points on the board and win. this is how this white house has been. through all of the chaos, they get a lot of great stuff done with judges, taxes and isis being defeated. but listen, there was no chaos in the hillary clinton campaign and she got globbered. there was no chaos in the obama administration but isis grew. trump drives on chaos. a lot is self-inflicted, but it s a feedy preensy with the press. frenzy with the press. they are trying to take everybody out. the white house communication s director and the chief of staff. someone who ordered an expensive table. blood is in the water.
consequences, so like when we pulled out of iraq, you see what happened with isis, and they took years, we turned our backs on iraq, isis grew and then we had this, you know, pan national threat, this transnational threat that really spans all across africa and the arabian peninsula and so if we get out of afghanistan without having properly built the capacity to defend that country and prefven terrorists from taking hosts in there, we could very well have a replay of that and now that isis has moved to partly in afghanistan and partly in libya, why libya? because it s ungoverned space. so we have to understand that if we get out, this is what we re going to have to deal with. no, i m hanging on your every word, general, and i think my biggest takeaway, listen to mick nicholson. hopefully that is exactly what the commander in chief is doing. you re exactly right. hopefully iraq is a lesson