Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is untested as a leader, yet he was expected to get a warm reception from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. The reason: He is not former Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
The White House said Ghani, who was to speak yesterday before a joint meeting of the US Congress, was an opportunity to mark a new chapter in US-Afghanistan relations, which were strained by acrimony between US President Barack Obama and Karzai.
Lawmakers have been critical about US troop involvement in the US’ longest war, wasteful spending in Afghanistan and Karzai’s anti-US rhetoric.
Photo: EPA
Toward the end of his tenure, Karzai did not think the US was holding Afghanistan’s interests front and center. He repeatedly railed against the thousands of civilians being killed and said the war against terrorists should not be fought in the villages of his country.
US officials and lawmakers did not think Karzai’s comments were appropriate given that 2,200 US servicemen and women had been killed and billions of US tax dollars had been spent during the conflict.
Still, despite being weary of war, lawmakers from both parties praised the White House announcement on Tuesday that it would slow the pace of US troop withdrawal.
In a shift from his previous plan, Obama said the US would leave its 9,800 troops in Afghanistan in place rather than downsizing to 5,500 by the end of the year.
The size of the US footprint for next year is still to be decided, Obama said, but he brushed aside any speculation the withdrawal would bleed into 2017. That means the slowdown will not jeopardize his commitment to end the US’ involvement in Afghanistan before leaving office in January 2017.
Deficiencies in the Afghan security forces, heavy casualties in the ranks of the army and police, a fragile new government and fears that Islamic State fighters could gain a foothold in Afghanistan combined to persuade Obama to slow the withdrawal.
US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Washington cannot allow Islamic State militants to rise in Afghanistan as they did in Iraq. He criticized Obama’s earlier plan for a faster withdrawal, saying the president was “dictating policy preferences divorced from security realties.”
Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the White House announcement the “right decision” and said it would improve stability in the region.
US Representative Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the US cannot afford to see Afghanistan spiral back into lawlessness and re-emerge as a safe hub for terrorists. He said that keeping troops there would also help maintain intelligence on the ground.
Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, said that while everyone longs for the day when Afghans can meet their own security needs, “Iraq has shown us the consequences of leaving a fragile ally too early.”
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