consultation at the very least. garrett, let me go to you. it s only been about an hour since we ve heard what mike pence and mike pompeo had to say about this pause. and be clear, kurdish fighters now just have five days less becaus do you sense that it changes any of the frustration? any of the concern that you ve on capitol hill about what this means both for u.s. policy and for stability in that region? well, it s so interesting because this is very much donald trump s party now, not mitt romney s. but i guarantee the vast majority of lawmakers in both parties agree far more with the language that you just heard from the junior senator from utah than they do with the president of the united states and the way he has described both how we got into this situation and how the president at least believes we re getting out of it. the reaction has been relatively muted so far on the hill on the house side we ve been mostly
between the two sides. now, here s the problem. president erdogan thinks that the sdf, the kurdish militias, are terrorists, and he says he absolutely will not negotiate with terrorists. david? all right, ian, thank you. and what about those u.s. troops now caught in the region? the pentagon is now trying to get them out safely. and then, of course, news of this call for a cease-fire tonight. let s get right to abc s chief global affairs correspondent martha raddatz. and martha, the president says even after u.s. forces get out of syria, they will remain in the region to monitor the situation to try to prevent a resurgence of isis, with news that so many of these isis fighters have escaped. reporter: that s right, david. there will be a very small contingent of american troops in southern syria, but they re not really near the isis fight. the rest of the american troops, about 1,000, will go to iraq and be available for anti-isis and counterterrorism missions. but without america
forward one is to avoid that any form of could have autonomy is created in close to the borders of turkey because in the southeast of turkey most of the people that are living there have. secondly. wants to play a major role in the whole resettlement of syria and wants to show military strength in the region. russia for example iran and the other regional players ok so let s let s look at what this offensive will do we have for example could forces in the east and syria holding what i use feiss that it s. what then happens to them there you know to turkey is holding in the whole northern part of syria also so-called sunni arab regions in the area of it live then they have already captured kodesh areas around of rain and now this is the 3rd invasion into the north an eastern part which is mainly. populated here the kurdish militias have detained
now, during this time, isis took advantage of the chaos and claimed huge swaths of both syria and iraq. by 2014, it had declared a caliphate or an islamic state. in september of that year, congress approved president obama s plan for the united states to arm and train rebels in syria to fight isis. the u.s. also launched air strikes against the group inside the country. now, by 2015, the u.s. government began sending american troops to syria to serve as advisers or trainers. there are now about 2,000 u.s. special forces backing kurdish militias, who are fighting isis in the northeastern part of the country, where isis has now been reduced to remote pockets of the dessert. they don t control any meaningful towns or village. now here s where it gets complicated. mixed into all of this is russia, which intervened in 2015 and helped turned the tide of the civil war in favor of syrian president, bashar al assad. also in the game is iran, which
the syrian army and we are one of the syrian people and we are one we are all one and we have one will. during a visit to jordan the turkish foreign minister said a deal wouldn t affect his country s resolve. if part of my future. if the syrian regime really does enter affray into clans kurdish militias then there s no problem however if it comes in to protect them then nothing and nobody can deter and stop the turkish army it s very clear operation olive branch and affray names to cleanse these areas from terrorists and if you did terrorists that it would tell you. turkey is keen to avoid a kurdish stronghold on its southern border with syria so its own forces launched a major military offensive into a frame last month in a bid to expel the kurdish fighters that control the region the offensive has