Mattis Speaks Out on Trump Abandoning Kurds: ‘ISIS Will Resurge’ if U.S. Does Not Keep Pressure on in Syria

Former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis warned that if the United States does not keep pressure on ISIS in Syria, the terror group will “resurge,” in an interview set to air on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.

In a clip released by NBC News on Saturday, Chuck Todd pressed Mattis on whether the Trump administration was giving up the fight against ISIS in Syria.

“Are we still doing this fight now?” Todd asked. “Or have we just pulled back, and it’s now up to the Kurds on their own?”

“Well it’s a — it’s in a situation of disarray right now,” Mattis said. “Obviously, the Kurds are adapting to the Turkish attacks. And we’ll have to see if they’re able to maintain the fight against ISIS. It’s going to have an impact, the question is, how much.”

“How concerned should we be about abandoning an ally like the Kurds that maybe twenty years down the road this comes to bite us?” Todd asked.

“I think Secretary of State Pompeo, the intelligence services, the foreign countries that are working with us have it about right that ISIS is not defeated. We have got to keep the pressure on ISIS so they don’t recover. We may want a war over, we may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out, as President Obama learned the hard way, out of Iraq. But the enemy gets the vote we say in the military. And in this case, if we don’t keep the pressure on then ISIS will resurge. It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.”

Mattis left the Trump administration last year over President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw troops from Syria.

Watch above, via NBC News.