SOFA in Afghanistan?

[davidbfpo]

David,

In your reading did you come across anything on the relationship between numbers of troops post 2014 and planned elections? What can be the status of any agreement in that background?

No. IIRC the national Afghan elections are in December 2014, although no date was actually found a month ago.

I would expect a SOFA will be on the political agenda long before then, President Karzai's stance is not helpful. The question I expect many Afghans are wondering about is what will be the US role post-2014 and what does the Afghan state need to do for the USA?

[MSG Proctor]

If we calculate that the Taliban are fostering an information environment that forces Afghan politicians to draw from the Iraq playbook (talk tough against the US-led Coalition to bolster your own political support in a new democracy) then we see clearly where they want this to head.

The backdrop of all this is of course the so-called Arab Spring. Because once the socialist/dictatorships in the ME fell (Iraq, Egypt, Tanzania, Libya, etc...) and the 2009 Tehran uprising failed, the clear winners are the Islamists. What remains to be seen is whether Kabul will honor the sacrifices of a 50-member international coalition that spilt blood to secure Afghanistan or whether Afghanistan will be forced to cave to the pressure of Islamism led by the compelling rhetoric of the Taliban.

If the present US administration (which just changed out the SECSTATE and SECDEF) uses the SOFA as the justification for ending the deployment of US troops prior to December 2014, we may hear a giant sucking sound coming out of Afghanistan much sooner than expected.