Now is not the time for the United States to pull out of Iraq, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Wednesday while responding to the news of Iran firing 15 ballistic missiles at targets in Iraq.
"It's great that we didn't have any members of our military killed or injured," the Illinois Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "It may be an opportunity for us to kind of walk back from this cliff that Iran has brought us to."
However, there are some people who have said the United States should leave Iraq "on a high note" after last week's airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, said Kinzinger, but he disagrees.
"That would be exactly what Iran and Soleimani wanted, for us to leave," he said, adding that "hopefully we are walking back from Iran's escalation, but we can finish any fight."
He also criticized people on the left for the idea that Iran's aggression is America's fault, accusing them of revising modern history.
Kinzinger responded to a tweet posted by House Speaker Nancy in which she called for ensuring the safety of service members and ending "needless provocations from the Administration" while demanding Iran cease its violence.
"My thought is, let's say under [former President Barack] Obama, if Speaker [John] Boehner had done something like this, I would have been very disturbed," said Kinzinger. "He never obviously would have. This was wrong. You know, at the time when Americans are having missiles raining down on them, we should actually rally around the flag.
"There is plenty of time for politics. We have a whole year for the election. For the speaker to basically, in essence, accuse the president of these missiles coming down on the American soldiers is something I think they are going to regret."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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