WASHINGTON: Pakistan wants US President Barack Obama to review his Afghan policy which even his generals fear may not work, says a senior Pakistani defence official.
The official, who visited Washington last week, said he had come with a message: “Pakistan wants the president to take another look.”
On Thursday, Gen Joseph Dunford, the commander of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, told Congress that those in uniform did not necessarily support President Obama’s decision to set a deadline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
“I think all of us in uniform, including Afghans, would have preferred for that to be a bit more ambiguous.”
President Obama has announced plans to end US combat missions in Afghanistan by 2014 and withdraw all troops by December 2016.
Obama says US finishing Afghan job
The Associated Press reported that the Pakistani defence official told its correspondent that Pakistan felt “the entire basis of the (US) drawdown has not been met.”
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to comment publicly on the US policy, said the withdrawal plan was based on having a peaceful transition from outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to a new government, Afghanistan signing the security agreement and assurances the Afghan security forces will be able to hold the country together once the international forces leave.
“Tell me, has any one of them been met?” he asked.
At the US Congress, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, warned that President Obama’s Afghan policy was not working.
“There’s a disaster in the making … losing all the gains we fought for inside of Afghanistan by drawing down too quick and not being able to help the Afghans in a reasonable fashion,” he said.
Senator Robert Menendez, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he feared that a complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan could create an Iraq-like situation there.
“When the administration announced plans to completely draw down forces from Afghanistan by 2016, I was concerned about the plan, and I still have concerns,” he said.
Meanwhile, the US Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman told reporters that the United States wanted close border coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The envoy said it was in the interest of all countries in the region to have stability along the Afghan border.
