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 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 behaviour would harm his nation's security long into the future. Defence 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.
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