Turkey and Syria

Floor Speech

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Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I rise to call attention to the dire situation that continues to unfold in northern Syria.

Turkey embarked on a reckless and brutal intervention on October 9, 2019, ostensibly to clear northern Syria of terrorist elements. It has ironically dubbed this operation ``Peace Spring.'' The departure of U.S. forces in the days just prior to this incursion left nothing between Turkish military forces and the predominantly Kurdish militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. Up until the cease-fire agreement that was announced today, the SDF bore the brunt of the Turkish assault.

The Kurds are deeply stung by what they see as America's abandoning them--this after a long, hard, and successful fight against ISIS.

At the height of its power, ISIS controlled territory larger than the United Kingdom. As many Americans know, ISIS directed and inspired terrorist attacks on our homeland, in communities across the United States, and staged numerous attacks against our troops overseas. ISIS's branches across the globe have conducted unimaginable atrocities, including targeting Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, and others who opposed ISIS's corrupt interpretation of Islam. Examples of these atrocities are the heartbreaking stories of so-called Yazidi brides who were forced into marriages with ISIS fighters. They were raped and brutalized repeatedly and were forced to decide whether to abandon their children or to make an escape. There are multiple stories of ISIS's terror that has been inflicted on those with disabilities, such as babies being suffocated simply for being born with Down syndrome.

The United States, together with a coalition of over 30 countries, engaged in a campaign to rid the world of ISIS and to restore peace and stability to that region. Yet it was not a nation-state that bore the brunt of the fighting against ISIS. The Kurds and the Arabs who made up the Syrian Democratic Forces took the fight to the heart of the caliphate. With the help of U.S. Special Operations Forces and airstrikes, the SDF liberated lands held by the terror group, imprisoned thousands of terrorist fighters, and restored hope to hundreds of thousands who suffered under ISIS rule.

In our fast-moving and quickly changing world, it is easy for some to forget the terrible threat ISIS once posed while they were at their most powerful, but it would be wrong to think we can now allow ourselves to take our foot off of our enemy's throat.

Even now, ISIS cells are seeking to take advantage of the chaos in northern Syria to reconstitute and once again pose a direct threat to Americans right here in our homeland.

You cannot watch what is unfolding in Syria without being fundamentally concerned about the security of our friends and our neighbors. A recapitalization of ISIS is a threat to us all.

It is for this reason that I have introduced a resolution which calls on the Department of Defense and the Department of State to provide a plan within 30 days which will outline a strategy to ensure ISIS will never again threaten Americans or our allies now or in the future.

This strategy will address the ongoing threat that ISIS poses regionally and globally and will outline the plan to prevent an ISIS resurgence, contain ISIS expansion, mitigate the threat ISIS poses to the United States and our allies, and describe how our gains against ISIS since 2014 will be further protected.

We cannot afford to take our eyes off of this vital task of ensuring the lasting and irreversible defeat of ISIS. We must consolidate our gains to rid the world of this terrible organization and insist on a sound strategy to ensure our success to that end.

Too many of our partner forces and indeed American brothers and sisters in arms have fought and died in this fight, and we must ensure that those sacrifices were not made in vain.

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