It should be up to the Afghans to solve their own future, not the United States, former ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill said on Jansing & Co Friday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited the White House Friday and met with President Obama. The two leaders discussed the future role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
“I think the point needs to be made…that we’re prepared to help. But the question is how much can we help and for how long?” Hill told msnbc’s Chris Jansing.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have proposed keeping anywhere from 6,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 to go after terrorists and train Afghan forces. But just this week, the White House said the president is open to the idea of pulling out all U.S. troops after 2014.
“We’d be leaving behind a very dicey proposition; a country’s whose governance is clearly about as weak as we’ve seen it, a country that has rather predatory neighbors and a country that I think is going to have real trouble making its way,” said Hill.
The former ambassador also contrasted the situation in Afghanistan to Iraq.
“In Iraq from the summer of ’09, a full year and a half before U.S. troops withdrew, we were out of the villages, towns, the cities. We had turned many of these missions over to the Iraqi army that has some capabilities. And I think when you look at the Afghan military, you don’t really see those capabilities,” said Hill.
Bryan Weakland