President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria ahead of a long-planned Turkish military operation is being blasted by lawmakers and security experts in Washington, including Republicans better known for being loyal allies of the president.

The White House announcement late Sunday night, which said Turkey will take on the role of containing the Islamic State in Syria, is being decried by critics as a win for Iran and ISIS and a betrayal of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters on the ground who have long been in Ankara's sights.

In a rare attack on Trump's policies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the move "impulsive" and "a disaster in the making."

"I hope I'm making myself clear how shortsighted and irresponsible this decision is in my view," Graham, a close confidant of Trump's, told Fox News on Monday morning. "This is a big win for Iran and Assad. A big win for ISIS."

He also tweeted his concerns, calling the potential policy decision "a disaster in the making."

https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1181181747247140864

The criticism focuses on what many are calling an abandonment of America's Kurdish allies on the ground in Syria, an organization of militias who spearheaded the fight against ISIS and suffered heavy casualties supporting the U.S. campaign there.

Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., broke with Trump over the foreign policy shift.

"A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime. And it would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup," McConnell said in a statement Monday afternoon.

"I urge the President to exercise American leadership to keep together our multinational coalition to defeat ISIS and prevent significant conflict between our NATO ally Turkey and our local Syrian counterterrorism partners," McConnell said. "

Turkey characterizes the fighters, particularly the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, as terrorists and a security threat on its southern border and has long expressed its desire to launch an offensive against them. The Turks stress the YPG's ties to a separatist Kurdish group in Turkey, the PKK, which has carried out a decades-long violent insurgency against the Turkish state.

Turkey already has troops amassed along the Turkish-Syrian border and in January 2018 attacked Afrin, a Kurdish stronghold in northern Syria, in an offensive that drove hundreds of thousands of Kurds to refugee camps.