TODAY’S FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES 4
would deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to quell
the violence and stabilize the government (The White House 2009). The addi-
tional troops were to be withdrawn by 2011. Partisan debates over the drawdown
in 2011 and again in 2015 were intense and will be described below. In 2010,
NATO agreed that responsibility for security would be handed over to Afghani-
stan by 2014. The actual portfolio exchange occurred in June 2013. In May 2011,
Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALS at his previously hidden compound in
Pakistan. It is also during this time that talks began between the United States and
Afghanistan on a longer-term military and security agreement. The United States,
Great Britain, and NATO formally ended combat in 2014. The violence associated
with sectarianism and the insurgency continued, however, claiming more lives
than any year since the initial invasion of 2001 (BBC News 2015). A disputed
election in 2014 resulted in the presidency of Ashraf Ghani, a former university
chancellor who has also worked for the World Bank.
In 2015, the Obama administration announced that it would delay final troop
withdrawal from Afghanistan in order to assist in the maintenance of stability and
security, provide further training for Afghan security forces, and provide political
space for ongoing peace talks between the government and the Taliban to occur
(Jaffe and Ryan 2015). As part of the revised plan, nearly 10,000 U.S. troops
would remain in Afghanistan through 2016, with 5,500 to remain in the country
beyond Obama’s presidency. As part of his statement, Obama in essence admitted
that he would not meet the goal of having all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by
the end of his presidency. There has been a significant debate within the ranks
of Obama’s chief military advisers as to whether the final drawdown will leave
sufficient U.S. presence in Afghanistan to address security concerns (Barnes and
Lubold 2015).
Democrats on U.S. Relations with Afghanistan
The 2016 Democratic Party Platform mentions Afghanistan eight times. Democrats
are eager to emphasize in the platform that Afghanistan is continuing the transition
to taking on responsibility for its own security. Democrats also promise to put pres-
sure on both Pakistan and Afghanistan to deny terrorists sanctuary on either side of
their shared border. The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is prone
to terrorist activity because of its poverty, lack of government capacity, and low
levels of willingness to confront militant groups in the region. Finally, Democrats
point out that the United States will maintain a residual force in the region beyond
the 2016 election. Although most Democrats would prefer that the United States
remove its troops completely from the country, it has become clear that Afghani-
stan lacks the capacity to provide for its own security and combat terrorist groups
without U.S. and NATO assistance.
Since the mid-2000s, many Democrats have charged that the war in Iraq dis-
tracted the United States—and the administration of Republican president George
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