Brit Hume on the political fallout from President Trump's Syria strategy
President Trump announces new sanctions in an effort to pressure Turkey to stop its ongoing offensive against Kurdish forces; Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume joins Bret Baier on 'Special Report.'
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have ordered an incursion into Syria whether or not President Trump kept a small contingent of American forces there, according to Brit Hume.
Security in the region was held together by a "delicate arrangement" of sorts, propped up by the U.S. troops stationed there, Hume said Monday on "Special Report."
"It's pretty clear that what happened here was that we had this sort of delicate arrangement on that border, enforced by the presence of a small number of U.S. troops," he said.
Hume said the situation maintained relative peace for several months, but that any negotiations against military action are "out the window" now.
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The Fox News senior political analyst referenced Trump's weekend phone call with Erdogan, adding the Turkish leader effectively told the president he was sending troops in either way.
"We don't like it, we're going in," he said, characterizing Erdogan.
"The president was then confronted with that prospect -- and he did what we now know he did. You can make all kinds of arguments about whether he should've done that. It's not clear that if those troops had stayed there, they would've been in anything but danger."
After the president ordered the removal of troops from the area, he received bipartisan backlash for leaving the American-aligned Kurds to fend off Turkish troops themselves.
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"It was basically a fait accompli by the time he heard about it," Hume said. "It does look so far like the kind of disastrous situation with atrocities and the rest of it that everyone had feared."
Hume added if American forces remained, there is no reason why Erdogan wouldn't have put them in harm's way.
"They could've been killed by Turkish forces," he said.
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However, he lamented the fact the Kurds had been staunch American allies in the fight against terrorists like ISIS.
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In a statement posted to Twitter earlier on Monday, Trump specifically announced that steel tariffs would "be increased back up to 50 percent," and the U.S. will "immediately stop negotiations ... with respect to a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey."
The order would enable "powerful" additional sanctions against those who "may be involved in serious human rights abuses, obstructing a ceasefire, preventing displaced persons from returning home, forcibly repatriation refugees, or threatening the peace, security, or stability in Syria," Trump wrote.
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.