Karzai’s recalcitrance nudges U.S. ‘zero option’ for troops closer to reality
By Ernesto Londoño and Karen DeYoung, WashPost, Published: November 30
In January, when U.S. officials first raised the prospect of keeping no troops in Afghanistan after 2014, this “zero option” was broadly seen as a rhetorical bargaining chip the White House was using to nudge along talks over a long-term security agreement.
But an increasingly acrimonious stalemate between the officials and Afghanistan's recalcitrant president has made the prospect quite real. After its longest war in history, the United States is suddenly contemplating having to dismantle the bulk of its counterterrorism infrastructure in the region and abandon Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces. A wholesale withdrawal would also shut down the foreign-aid pipeline that keeps the Afghan state afloat and sharply limit any enduring U.S. diplomatic presence.
The uncertainty over the long-term security deal — which President Hamid Karzai has threatened not to sign by the end of the year, as the United States has demanded — has the potential to be particularly damaging on the eve of Afghanistan’s presidential election, scheduled to take place next spring, U.S. officials say.
“If it doesn’t happen, if this anxiety grows, you project into the upcoming electoral period a degree of instability caused by growing alarm at Afghanistan returning to the 1990s,” said James F. Dobbins, the State Department’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It’s every man for himself, where losers in the election don’t just go into the opposition but get killed or go into exile. It’s winner takes all.”
(More here.)
In January, when U.S. officials first raised the prospect of keeping no troops in Afghanistan after 2014, this “zero option” was broadly seen as a rhetorical bargaining chip the White House was using to nudge along talks over a long-term security agreement.
But an increasingly acrimonious stalemate between the officials and Afghanistan's recalcitrant president has made the prospect quite real. After its longest war in history, the United States is suddenly contemplating having to dismantle the bulk of its counterterrorism infrastructure in the region and abandon Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces. A wholesale withdrawal would also shut down the foreign-aid pipeline that keeps the Afghan state afloat and sharply limit any enduring U.S. diplomatic presence.
The uncertainty over the long-term security deal — which President Hamid Karzai has threatened not to sign by the end of the year, as the United States has demanded — has the potential to be particularly damaging on the eve of Afghanistan’s presidential election, scheduled to take place next spring, U.S. officials say.
“If it doesn’t happen, if this anxiety grows, you project into the upcoming electoral period a degree of instability caused by growing alarm at Afghanistan returning to the 1990s,” said James F. Dobbins, the State Department’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It’s every man for himself, where losers in the election don’t just go into the opposition but get killed or go into exile. It’s winner takes all.”
(More here.)
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