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The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 to topple the country’s Taliban-led government, capture Osama bin Laden, and destroy al-Qaeda. The war has been America’s longest conflict and more than 2,000 American troops have been killed and more than 19,000 have been wounded. Since the Iraq invasion of 2003, Afghanistan has played second fiddle to the global war on terrorism and the war has largely been ignored by the national media since President Obama assumed office in 2009. Although President Obama committed more American forces to Afghanistan, which emulated the “surge” strategy used in Iraq in 2007, America’s presence in the country is beginning to wind down. 2014 marks the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) combat mission and the United States is trying to negotiate a bilateral security agreement (BSA) with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that would allow American forces to remain in the country to train Afghan soldiers and continue counterterrorism operations. However, while Afghan elders have approved of the BSA, President Karzai has said that he will not sign the agreement until after Afghanistan holds presidential elections in April. He has also issued new conditions that the United States must agree to in order to get him to sign the BSA. The United States argues that Karzai cannot wait that long to sign the agreement and that if he fails to do so soon they will withdraw all combat forces from the country by the end of the 2014.
This topic brief will discuss the terms of the BSA, Karzai’s objections to the current agreement, and discuss the likelihood of the United States reaching a BSA agreement with Afghanistan by April of next year.
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