The former U.S. ambassador to Syria has said President Trump was "essentially correct" in removing troops from the country.

Robert Ford, a career diplomat and fluent Arabic speaker served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria under President George W. Bush after being a senior diplomat in Iraq. He was then appointed U.S. ambassador to Syria by President Barack Obama in 2010.

"The president should view the hullabaloo that erupted after he announced the Syrian pullout as an opportunity to take a number of steps to make the most of his essentially correct, but widely unpopular, move," Ford wrote in an op-ed Thursday for the Washington Post.

Ford is the most recent U.S. ambassador to Syria. He was recalled in late 2011 due to threats to his safety following the Syrian uprising, which he supported because Bashar Assad's regime began using force against protesters. He retired in 2014 and became a fierce critic of Obama's Syria policy.

Ford argued in hius article that it would be virtually impossible for U.S. troops to defeat the Islamic State's ideology and suggested that it was up to Syria to fix its own problems.

"Syrians had electricity and water when they rose up against Assad in 2011; it is Syria’s underlying societal problems that spawned the unrest and spurred Islamist extremist recruitment," he wrote. "Only Syrians, not U.S. troops and stabilization teams, can reverse that. We would do well to be humbler about our abilities, especially in the face of sustained, widespread regional hostility."

Ford addressed one of the main objections to Trump's decision — that it would cede influence to Iran — by noting that Trump can support Israeli operations against Iranian forces, despite a lack of troops in the area.

He concluded by saying that Trump's foreign policy team "got ahead" of him on a Syrian withdrawal and says Trump needs a more efficient National Security Council.