At a recent NATO Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, President Obama said that our progress in Afghanistan is improved from last year and called the overall summit “extremely productive.”[i]
Also at the conference, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced Saturday its continued commitment to Afghanistan and affirmed the timetable for a full transition to Afghan security forces and leadership that is set to begin in 2014.[ii]
This commitment from ISAF is an important step in accomplishing our mission in Afghanistan. The commitment from ISAF aides us in our goals of establishing a strong Afghan security force and Afghan military leadership. In affirming their commitment to Afghanistan, ISAF is also creating allies between it’s countries and Afghanistan.
Now that the US has the reaffirmed support from ISAF, we can now keep moving forward in Afghanistan and hopefully be ready to start handing over military and leadership responsibility to the Afghans. Although the timetable has been set, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan must be assessed before we start handing over responsibility to the Afghans. We must be cautious with these steps of withdrawal.
We are making progress in Afghanistan, but we must continue to move forward until the time is right to hand over responsibility to the Afghans and withdrawal, whether that be in 2014 or after.
No comments:
Post a Comment