Nikki Haley Slams Trump Withdrawal from Syria: ‘Turkey Is Not Our Friend’

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed President Donald Trump on Monday over an agreement with Turkey Sunday to withdraw from Kurdish-held portions of Syria.

“We must always have the backs of our allies, if we expect them to have our back. The Kurds were instrumental in our successful fight against ISIS in Syria. Leaving them to die is a big mistake,” Haley tweeted.

She added a hashtag: “#TurkeyIsNotOurFriend.”

We must always have the backs of our allies, if we expect them to have our back. The Kurds were instrumental in our successful fight against ISIS in Syria. Leaving them to die is a big mistake. #TurkeyIsNotOurFriend

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) October 7, 2019

Haley was not alone in criticizing Trump’s decision — which the president has hinted at for years — but her criticism was notable for two reasons.

One was Haley’s dismissal of the U.S. relationship with Turkey, a key NATO ally. The foreign policy establishment has long criticized Trump for criticizing NATO and the delinquent defense spending of many of its members.

The other notable fact about Haley’s criticism was that the day before, Haley had defended Trump’s foreign policy record:

If you look around the world, President Trump has a record every American should be proud of. In the Middle East, the ISIS caliphate has been destroyed, and we’ve stopped handing billions in cash to Iran that it used to fund terrorism. The North Korean regime is no longer testing long-range missiles. America is once again treating the Cuban dictatorship like the pariah it is, and Maduro’s days are numbered in Venezuela.

She added: “America is strong again, and it’s because of President Trump’s decisions.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.