General John Allen told the New York Times that negotiations with Afghan officials on a strategic partnership would "almost certainly" feature "a discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 force will look like."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had "in fact, just the other day talked about his desire to have conversations with the US about a post-2014 force," Allen was quoted as saying.
"We would probably see some number of advisers, trainers, intelligence specialists here for some period of time beyond 2014," the commander said.
Allen, who oversees the NATO-led force in the 10-year-old war, is the highest-ranking military officer to openly suggest the possibility of American forces remaining beyond 2014.
President Barack Obama's administration has suggested combat troops would depart by the end of 2014 but left the door open to a residual force remaining on the ground.
The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said earlier this month that Washington would be ready to keep forces in Afghanistan if the Kabul government requested it.
With the United States now engaged in a gradual troop drawdown, Karzai said Sunday his government is negotiating the terms of a long-term US presence in the country that could involve American troops.
US-led troops, which toppled the Taliban in a 2001 invasion, have been battling the hardline Islamist insurgency for ten years and are due to hand over security duties to Afghan government forces by 2015.
The United States is withdrawing 10,000 troops this year, leaving 91,000 on the ground into next year. Another 23,000 are due to leave by the end of September.
Former Afghan officials and analysts have warned the country likely will slide into a civil war, with rivals India and Pakistan clashing through proxies, if US and allied forces withdraw at the end of 2014.
In Iraq, US and Iraqi leaders could not agree on the terms for a future US force and the withdrawal of American troops has been accompanied by sectarian political turmoil.
COMMENTS (16)
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It's a polemic argument whether the U.S. should stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Those Afghans who profit from the U.S. and dread the return of the draconian rule of the Taliban would welcome the Americans to stay. In light of the anti-American sentiments in Pakistan, the U.S. presence is not desirable. India is isolated and definitely wants an ally in the region.
Again the duplicity....Taliban are not enemy of US and AQ is finished...so whats the point in overstaying in Afghanistan...Does not this indicates the evil designs of US?and all of us keep scolding Pakistan.
@Ali Tanoli: Correct! I too remember "Tiger" Niazi's words to the effect that Pakistan army shall never retreat or surrender from East Pakistan on public television, ten day before he signed the instrument of surrender, happily smiling with Indian Army and claiming that it was all just a game.
This means Afghan army would fight Taliban and US will provide air support. But eventually, Taliban will take over rural areas of Southern and Eastern Afghanistan but cities would be under control of Afghan army. Non pushtoon areas of Afghanistan will be entirely out of Taliban influence. It might lead to an informal partition of Afghanistan between pushtoon and non-pushtoon, which might trigger a greater pushtoonistan movement. This could be a disaster in the making for Pakistan
To stay you first need to defeat resistance.have NATO done it?
Unless they don't leave there won't be peace in Afghanistan. The russiansnhad left but they left their puppet regime in place.
Conquerors do not leave RICH PICKING LANDS, or land from where they can CONTROL OTHER LANDS, unless the price of occupation becomes too high, for the super-patriots back home. Remember even today there is an ARMY of 16’000 Americans in Iraq. They include a few “diplomats” (read viceroys), and hundreds of ARMED “ADVISORS” LICENCED to KILL. As long as China accepts to loan us the money, the occupation DIRECT or INDIRECT of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, will continue.
It won't be a large footprint but it allow the USA to to launch special ops and drone attacks -- should keep the Taliban and other strategic assets on their toes.
The terrorists and their allies thought that the US would cut and run and they would be back in their havens must be disappointed. Even if the US leaves it would not be total isolation and back to the bad old days of Taliban. They would and should keep a sizeable presence in the area and with the airpower they can take care of safe havens. Not a good news for those who were guessing to outwait the US.
There will always be some kind of presence of USA forces for a long, long time I have been predicting this for years that ISI is day dreaming to keep their assets alive until 2014 when USA will leave. It is an over trillion Dollar investment and no investor would like to loose all. Our only hope to get rid of this 'blanket' is Iran where USA and Israel may enter.
CNN just reported that the troops withdrawn from Iraq are to be deployed to Afghanistan. Now, I just don't get the US. Just yesterday Biden said that the Taliban weren't the US's real enemy, and yet here is a bunch of new US troops in Afghanistan. We really need to put an end to the US using Pakistan for its dirty work in Afghanistan. Just eliminate the TTP and other such radical militant elements from Pakistan, and start spending money on education and well-being of the common Pakistanis including Balochis. It's been too long that we've overlooked Baluchistan in our blind support of the US. We have nuclear weapons and that is our guarantee that if we don't allow terrorism to grow within our territory, no one would be dumb enough to talk about invading Pakistan or of the danger of nukes falling into the hands of militants (although I admit these are just hypothetical scenarios created to pressurize Pakistan into following the US and "doing more"). Fact is, it never was our war; we weren't given a choice when they told us "you are wither with us or against us". In this world, might is right, but we've seen that doing the US's dirty work has only rewarded us with an exponential increase in terrorism, refugees, poverty, "Raymond Davis-es" and cross border attacks by militants and NATO. It's time to really start developing our economy. We already lack behind more than we deserve to. Let's stand up. Vote for better people and stick together as one!
Plz stay in Afghanistan for 100 years and you will still be defeated.
Get ready for Operation pakistan !
This was expected since they would like to fortify their physical presence in South Asia, where most of the action in this century would be.
What is the purpose of staying this long when Talibans are your dear friends?
Untill the last Hour of Departure of Russians from Afghanistan they were allways saying red army never retreat and one day 1989 they said we leaving forever and left there tanks empty in kabul streets and crossed over to Amos River........