President Obama plans to end U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but is dealing with resistance from Afghan President Hamid Karza.
Obama wants to cut down American troops in Afghanistan from 63,000 to about 34,000 by February. Because of the national elections in Afghanistan in April, he wants to still have a presence there to provide security backup during this time of great tension.
According to Reuters a June 27 video conference between Obama and Karzai in an effort to try to negotiate solutions did not end well, making the possibility of zero U.S. troops in Afghanistan much greater. Many Afghan people believe that the presence of foreign troops in their country is needed or complete chaos would break out.
Karzai is now accusing the U.S. of attempting to form separate peace with the Taliban and Pakistani supporters, furthering the tension between him and Obama.
The U.S. has two core goals for Afghanistan, counterterrorism aimed at Al Qaeda and the training of Afghan security forces. Many officials believe that these objectives would be much harder to obtain with essentially no U.S. presence there, or merely a few hundred soldiers at the Embassy in Kabul. Christian Science Monitor reports that retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who was the first commander of combined forces in Afghanistan in 2003, is one of those officials.
“The down-side challenges of pursuing our key interests while having no forces in the region are still immense,” Barno said. “The administration has talked about an ‘enduring presence’ in Afghanistan, but the objectives it has laid out would be much more difficult with zero troops.”
Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, American troops have been in Afghanistan trying to defeat the Taliban, who are responsible for the Al Qaeda organization. Just last month, over a dozen of those troops have been killed.