Obama Asks Pentagon To Prepare Itself for Full Pullout from Afghanistan

President Barack Obama has threatened President Hamid Karzai with a full pullout of U.S. forces from Afghan soil, if Kabul does not sign the bilateral security agreement, which the president of Afghanistan has spent a lot of time, in Washington’s opinion, stalling. The U.S. president has warned his counterpart, via a telephone call, that each day that Karzai refuses to sign the treaty, the U.S. military mission, which will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, will become smaller in “scale and ambition” — or nonexistent. This agreement establishes the conditions of the stay of U.S troops in the country until the end of NATO’s mandate in December 2014.

The White House seems to have reached its maximum limit of patience regarding Karzai, and before the conversation occurred, Obama warned the Pentagon that he will be ready for a possible full pullout at the end of the year. “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,” said a spokesperson for the White House. As a result, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, has asked his officers for maximum “flexibility” before an eventual withdrawal, without ending the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for the White House explained that Obama sees it as “unlikely” that Karzai will sign the agreement, and that the administration is already working on “contingency planning,” which will guarantee an orderly exit at the end of the year. The relationship between Washington and Kabul becomes more and more tense every day; Obama and Karzai have spoken very little in the last few months. This has led to frustration on the part of the White House regarding the Afghan leader.

The conversation between the two presidents has occurred in the context of the next presidential election. This will take place in Afghanistan next April, but Karzai will not stand for election. With this date in mind, Karzai insists on not signing the bilateral security agreement, which, in his opinion, does not comply with the desired conditions of his country. He has advocated waiting for the end of the election to lengthen out the process, even though there is little hope of a clear winner after the first round.

What is obvious is that accomplishing the “zero option” is more complicated than leaving thousands of troops on the ground. But it is also not the same extracting more than 52,000 soldiers who are currently in Afghanistan — the total of the International Security Assistance Force, with more than 33,000 U.S troops. This leaves a contingent of 10,000 men for joint operations against al-Qaida, and training and modernizing the Afghan Army.

Karzai’s resistance to signing the bilateral security agreement could lead to a domino effect on other countries. Their mandates, like Obama’s, involve bringing their troops home faced with the danger of not having established the conditions for carrying out training and anti-terrorist operations. In the case of the United States, the Pentagon demands immunity for its troops, to the point that in the past, when it was not guaranteed, it obligated Washington to remove forces from Iraq after October 2011.

The defense secretary has confirmed that the Pentagon is moving in the direction Obama wants and that it has his “full support.”

“This is a prudent step given that President Karzai has demonstrated that it is unlikely that he will sign the bilateral security agreement, which would provide Department of Defense personnel with critical protections and authorities after 2014,” Hagel concluded.