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SEA ISLAND, Georgia — John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, is calling President Trump’s decision to remove American troops from northern Syria a “catastrophically bad idea” that is harming U.S. national security and boosting Russia’s influence in the Middle East.

Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, counseled Trump against pulling the military out of Syria, emphasizing to the president that the alliance with Kurdish fighters was instrumental in defeating the Islamic State with minimal American casualties. Kelly, Trump’s second chief of staff until resigning late last year, understands that the president was honoring his campaign promise to end “endless wars.” But he said Trump’s policy could backfire, with devastating repercussions for the homeland.

“I want to get out of the endless wars, too. The problem is, the other side, even if we wanted to surrender, will not take our surrender. They hate us because of who we are, the way we live our lives, the way we worship our God,” Kelly said Saturday during a panel discussion at the Sea Island Summit, a political conference hosted by the Washington Examiner.

“What was working in Syria was that for very little investment, the Kurds were doing all the fighting, the vast majority of the dying, and we were providing intelligence and fire support assistance. And we were winning,” Kelly added.

Earlier Saturday, Kelly recalled for attendees of the Sea Island Summit that he warned Trump before resigning as chief of staff that the president risked being impeached if he did not surround himself with firm advisers willing to keep him in check.

Kelly, 69, was Trump’s homeland security secretary before becoming White House chief of staff. He is hardly alone in his criticism of the president’s decision to halt military operations in Syria. Trump first signaled plans to remove American troops from the region in December, prompting James Mattis, also a retired Marine general, to resign as defense secretary. The president finally pulled the trigger this month, sparking a backlash from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

They are complaining that the move has left America’s Kurdish allies to the mercy Turkey, a country that considers them sworn enemies. It is a stain on the honor of the United States, they argue, though Trump claims a ceasefire he brokered has stopped the bloodshed. Lawmakers’ larger concerns are that the redeployment has diminished the influence of the U.S. in the region and could allow ISIS to reconstitute.

Kelly, calling the policy a “catastrophically bad idea,” offered a similar critique.

“It didn’t happen while I was there — and a couple of other people recently left the administration and then he went with his instinct,” Kelly said. “But it was, on a number of levels, the wrong thing to do and it has opened the way for the Russians to be very, very influential in the Middle East.”