Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor told Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that Sunday's U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria are an attempt to involve American forces in another Middle Eastern war.

"What we've heard routinely is that we're coming out. We're coming out. We're coming out. Each time the president seems to be subverted and we end up with a few more troops left," Macgregor told host Mark Steyn Monday about the continued presence of U.S. forces in Syria. "So it seems that your essential suspicion is probably accurate. This looks like an attempt to drag us into something."

The airstrikes took place days after a U.S. defense contractor was killed at a military compound in a rocket attack.

Military jet fighters conducted "precision defensive strikes" on five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, Jonathan Hoffman, a spokesperson for the Pentagon told Fox News. Two defense officials added that Air Force F-15 jet fighters carried out the strikes.

Macgregor believes some U.S. officials are walking Trump into an "ambush."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"I don't think we have any idea what we're doing there. And I think the president has been skillfully misinformed," Macgregor said. "I think he's being walked into another ambush much as he was last summer when all of a sudden he was presented with this fait accompli. 'They've shot down a Global Hawk [drone]. We have to attack Iran.' Now we have attacked these Iranian backed forces.

Steyn asked Macgregor if Trump has become "captive of Bush-era policy" prompting the colonel to say it "appears" that way and warning that the president is the only person keeping the country from another "pointless war."

"He's the one who can say no, and he does," Macgregor said. "But he needs to understand that's not enough. He's got to move the people around him who are part of the problem out."

Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report.