WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will not commit more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until he is convinced that the central government can be a credible and effective U.S. partner, a senior White House aide said Sunday.
It wasn’t clear whether Obama intends to accept the recommendation by Gen. Stanley McChrystal for thousands more troops in Afghanistan.
The central question before Obama, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, is “not how much troops you have but whether, in fact, there’s an Afghan partner.”
The issue of developing an effective Afghan central government has dogged the U.S. mission virtually from the war’s start. It gained urgency after an Aug. 20 presidential election marred by charges of ballot- stuffing and voter coercion.
An investigation could lead to a runoff between President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Abdullah’s deputy campaign manager, Saleh Mohammad Registani, accused Karzai on Sunday of pressuring his supporters on the election commission to delay the probe because it will show him below the 50 percent threshold to avoid a second round of voting.
Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said the president had done nothing to influence the election commission.
In Sunday talk-show interviews, Emanuel repeatedly underlined doubts about the Kabul government as a reliable partner for the U.S.
“There’s not a security force, an army, the type of services that are important for the Afghans to become true partners,” Emanuel said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman visited Kabul over the weekend and said Obama should wait for the election cloud to lift.
“I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today without an adequate government in place or knowledge about what that government’s going to be,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Critics have blasted Obama for undertaking a lengthy review.
