Obama warns Karzai of full troop withdrawal

[Devil Soul]

Obama warns Karzai of full troop withdrawal
By AFP
Published: February 25, 2014

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama told his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on Tuesday he is now planning a full US troop withdrawal, but did not rule out agreeing a post-2014 mission with the next Kabul government.

The US threat was the latest twist in a long political tug-of-war with Karzai, who has infuriated Washington with his refusal to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) governing a post-2014 mission in the dying months of his mandate.

“President Obama told President Karzai that because he has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the BSA, the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning,” the statement said.

“Specifically, President Obama has asked the Pentagon to ensure that it has adequate plans in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014.”

The White House has previously warned that Karzai’s intransigence on a deal painstakingly negotiated last year meant it had no choice but to consider a full withdrawal.

It refuses to leave troops behind in Afghanistan after America’s longest war without the legal protections granted by the BSA.

Though Karzai has refused to sign the pact, which defines a post-2014 NATO training and anti-terror mission, some of the candidates in April’s Afghan elections have indicated they would sign it. The deal has also been endorsed by a council of tribal elders.

The statement said that Obama was reserving the “possibility of concluding a BSA with Afghanistan later this year,” should he find a willing partner in the government.

It was the most concrete sign yet that Washington may be willing to wait out the Afghan electoral process before making a final decision on a future role in Afghanistan.

However, the statement warned “the longer we go without a BSA, the more challenging it will be to plan and execute any US mission.”

“Furthermore, the longer we go without a BSA, the more likely it will be that any post-2014 US mission will be smaller in scale and ambition.”

The statement clearly implied that Karzai’s behavior would harm his nation’s security long into the future.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel backed Obama’s move, and confirmed for the first time the Pentagon was actively planning a full troop withdrawal.

Hagel said that top Pentagon brass would simultaneously plan options for a full withdrawal and a prolonged mission in Afghanistan, which would likely to include at least several thousand US troops.

The row over the BSA is the latest twist in the long and deteriorating relationship between Washington and the mercurial Karzai, who was once seen as a savior after the toppling of the Taliban but is now viewed in political and security circles here as unreliable and unpredictable.

Obama has not yet made a decision on how many troops would be left behind to train and equip Afghan forces after the withdrawal of US combat teams by the end of this year, should he decide on a follow up mission.

Obama’s political opponents have warned that leaving Afghanistan without Western troops would severely strain the fledgling national forces stood up by NATO and could lead to a return by the Taliban.

Some have compared such a scenario to Washington’s loss of focus after helping rebels oust Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, leaving a power vacuum exploited by the Taliban, which eventually offered haven to al Qaeda as it planned the September 11 attacks in 2001.

The White House said Obama used Tuesday’s call with Karzai, who is not standing in the election, to welcome the start of campaign season and to push for free, fair and credible polls.

“The President reiterated that the United States would not support any candidate in the elections — the choice of who leads Afghanistan is for Afghans to make,” the statement said.

 

[Edevelop]

Its seems U.S feels less pressure because now Pak Army has decided to go against all terror groups including Haqqanis

 

[ejaz007]

Pakistani Official: US Withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 'Means Civil War'

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s warning to Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday that he may pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year if there is no security agreement signed drew a swift response from Pakistani officials concerned about the volatile border with their neighbor.

“The zero option means civil war in Afghanistan” said a senior Pakistani defense official told reporters in Washington, DC. “In my opinion zero option should not be an option.”

Afghan and Pakistani forces have traded gunfire and artillery strikes over their shared mountainous border over the past several years, and both are fighting Islamist movements whose leadership structure is hiding out in the neighboring country.

Pakistan has lost thousands of troops in recent years fighting Islamist militants in the Swat Valley and Waziristan, where the government is able to exercise little to no control.

But Pakistan is poised to yet again launch a major military sweep of the tribal region in the coming days after weeks of Taliban attacks and the failure of peace talks with the militants. The Pakistani Army has about 150,000 troops in the region, which borders the Afghan province of Khost, also a hotbed is Islamist militancy.

The Pakistani official was scathing in his estimation of the Afghan security forces, saying that “the inherent weakness of the Afghan National Security Forces, [is] that they have yet to mature into a cohesive fighting machine,” since they have not been able to organically grow an officer and junior non-commissioned leader corps.

“If there is a zero option and if there is mayhem in Afghanistan,” the official continued, “I think 30 percent of forces would desert because basically they are all tribesmen, so this will be a very dangerous thing.”

The Afghan Army has been losing 4,000 to 7,000 troops a month to desertion over the past two years, but a brisk recruitment rate has kept the force growing to reach its goal of about 195,000 soldiers.

The United States government has invested about $55 billion in building up and equipping Afghan security forces since 2001.

The US has been trying to sign a status of forces agreement with the Karzai government in Kabul that would protect US troops from arrest and grant basing rights, but the Afghan leader has continuously balked.

Elections for the next president are slated for April, with a runoff expected to take place in July if there is no clear winner. Karzai has said that he wants the next president to sign the pact.

In a call with Karzai on Tuesday, president Obama told the Afghan leader that without a signed Bilateral Security Agreement in advance of the NATO Defense Ministerial — which begins Feb. 26 in Brussels, Belgium — he would ask the Pentagon to ensure that it has plans in place to pull out at the end of this year, as opposed to keeping 3,000 to 10,000 troops behind to continue to train and advise Afghan forces.

Entrenched positions on Capitol Hill fell into place on Tuesday after the White House statement was released in the morning.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters he believes the administration should cease trying to convince Karzai to sign the pact.

“We need a president’s signature,” Levin said, “not his.”

“His signature is not that reliable,” Levin said. “He can sign something and then change his mind, just the way he has not signed something after he has agreed to something.”

Levin’s comments came about 24 hours after his House counterpart, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., used a National Press Club address to urge Obama to keep an unspecified number of American troops there beyond this year.

McKeon is joined by hawkish members like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others. They believe a complete US withdrawal will undo gains made by US forces since late 2001, allow the Taliban to regain power — and create the same kind of safehaven for al-Qaida that allowed it to plot the 9/11 attack.

But a growing number of congressional Republicans, perhaps bending to a growing majority of the American public, seem willing to end the Afghanistan operation. They are joined by liberal and moderate Democrats, including those like Sen. Joe Manchin, who hails from red state West Virginia.

Manchin issued a statement late Tuesday afternoon supporting the “zero option.”

The moderate West Virginian said keeping American troops there after 13 years — a milestone that will be hit later this year — is unlikely to produce a clear US victory.

“Unfortunately, American money and military might cannot solve the problems that remain,” Manchin said. “They cannot make President Karzai a friend of the United States, they cannot prevent insider attacks against our troops, and they cannot root out the corruption that thrives on American tax dollars. It is time to bring our troops home from our nation’s longest war.”

Staff writer Aaron Mehta contributed to this report.

Pakistani Official: US Withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 'Means Civil War' | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[Zarvan]

Its seems U.S feels less pressure because now Pak Army has decided to go against all terror groups including Haqqanis

Who told you Pakistan is going against Haqqanis Pakistan is not going against Haqqanis at all Sir Haqqanis and Pakistan Army are in full contacts with each other and they are not fighting against each other Sir

 

[Tameem]

It seems Pakistan going to play a very important role for this whole region in coming years, we are picking up just at the right time.

 

[CENTCOM]

We are working closely with our Afghan counterparts in regards to our shared objectives in the region. It is important to keep in mind that Afghanistan has come a long way, and we remain optimistic about the future of Afghanistan. We continue to address our shared concerns and hope to maintain a good relationship for the betterment of the country. We repeat what Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, said: "As the United States military continues to move people and equipment out of the Afghan theater, our force posture over the next several months will provide various options for political leaders in the United States and NATO. And during this time DoD will still continue planning for U.S. participation in a NATO-led mission focused on training, advising, and assisting Afghan security forces, as well as a narrowly focused counterterrorism mission. The United States will consult closely with NATO Allies and ISAF Partners in the months ahead, and I look forward to discussing our planning with NATO and ISAF defense ministers in Brussels this week."

Ali Khan
Digital Engagement Team, USCENTCOM

 

[nangyale]

Obama and Karazai agree to part ways
By M K Bhadrakumar – February 26, 2014
The US president Barack Obama’s telephone call to Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday is a rare happening, given the poor equations between the two leaders, and it was intended to flag a ‘turning point’ in the White House’s strategy for the period beyond 2014. It comes just before an important NATO meeting at defence minister level in Brussels and at a time when for the first time the majority opinion among the American public has begun casting doubts on the raison d’etre of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Obama’s message to Karzai is 3-fold: i) The ‘zero option’ (complete withdrawal of US troops) becomes part of the contingency planning; ii) US realises that the Bilateral Security Agreement [BSA] will be signed, if at all, only by the next Afghan president; and, iii) A “limited post-2014 mission… could be in the interests” of the US and Afghanistan, but delay in signing the BSA makes it more challenging to “plan and execute the mission” and makes it likely that the mission will be “smaller in scale and ambition.” (here).
Obama refused to link the BSA with the commencement of peace talks; nor did he threaten to suspend US aid unless the BSA is signed. On the other hand, he left open the possibility of concluding the BSA later in the year. In a way, their conversation amounts to a parting of ways between Washington and Karzai.
The initial remarks from Karzai’s aides suggest that the mood in Kabul is far from one of shock and awe. The US’ ‘zero option’ doesn’t seem to perturb Karzai, either. If Obama had hoped that following the major Taliban strike at an Afghan base in Kunar inflicting serious casualties Karzai might be in a mood to compromise, that has not happened.
The Afghan armed forces are proving their mettle under fire, disproving the doomsday predictions by the western (and Russian) experts. A grudging admiration is there that the Kunar incident didn’t exactly bring the roof crashing down. This is evident in the candid remark by the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey that the Afghan forces have been doing very well. (here). Dempsey, in fact, has just arrived in Kabul on a mission to assess the state of play.
There is an old saying that success has many fathers. The Afghan army’s growing display of confidence and might to prevent an outright Taliban takeover in Afghanistan impresses not only Dempsey but US politicians as well so much so that Obama’s Republican critics on Capitol Hill are now blaming the president for being remiss in not taking credit for the ‘victory’ in the US’ war in Afghanistan.
Of course, US will want to keep its (and NATO) forces in Afghanistan against the backdrop of the ‘new cold war’ with Russia and the ‘pivot’ to Asia. The Republicans are demanding that Obama should somehow ram through the BSA. The House Speaker John Boehner has issued a formal statement in this regard.
Indeed, this is also linked to US domestic politics. The BSA question can snowball into a foreign-policy template of the Republicans’ campaign in the November congressional election. The point is, there is no certainty that Karzai’s successor would agree to conclude the BSA. In a statement just before leaving for Brussels, US defence secretary Chuck Hagel said that it will be a “prudent step” to do contingency planning factoring in the ‘zero option’. (here).
The White House spokesman Jay Carney has admitted that Washington is uncertain a future Afghan government would be on board. He said, “I don’t think we would, given the experience we’ve had, predict with any great certainty what might happen. The longer we go without a signed BSA, the more likely a zero option becomes and even if a BSA is signed, the smaller the mission will have to be, by necessity, in scale and ambition.”
The plain truth is that it may not be anytime before August or so that a new government will take charge in Kabul and six months is a long, long time in politics.