9 April 2015

Ashraf Ghani: America’s New Subedar?

April 07, 2015

Six months after assuming office, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has finally made his choice of selecting a strategic partner amid questions over what the future holds for Afghanistan given the continuing uncertainty. Following Ghani’s visit to Washington on 23 March 2015, at least the anxieties surrounding the post-drawdown situation seemed to have been put to rest. Ghani fervently pleaded for a slowdown of the withdrawal timeline suggesting that a delay "will pay off the investments over the last 14 years." His plea seemingly found ready acceptance. President Obama said it is “well worth it” and agreed to prolong the withdrawal timeline until 2017 despite an earlier pledge to cut the currently deployed 9,800 troops by half to 5,500 by the end of this year.

President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah renewed the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with the United States and secured more US commitments for stabilizing Afghanistan. This came a week after the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2210 (2015) on 16 March 2015, which presented a positive report card of achievements and expressed a “renewed hope” for a stable Afghanistan ahead.

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