The Foreign Service Journal, June 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2019 19 in the media. And groups visiting the country see what they came to see. What is currently at play are issues such as the size of our remaining forces; the mandate of those forces, which is also up to the Afghan government and NATO, with discussion in private with the Taliban; our payment for and enabling of the Afghan security forces, who are doing the bulk of the fighting; the size of the U.S. civilian assistance budget; and the size of our embassy. The most vital of these is our support for the Afghan security forces, includ- ing both funding and training. We have to continue this support to meet the goals of the White House’s 2017 South Asia Strategy, our most current stated policy—to achieve through political settlement a stable Afghanistan that will be a viable partner for regional security. We need to consider this assistance in terms of the ongoing and abiding U.S. interest in supporting pro-democratic forces and denying safe haven to terror- ists in Afghanistan, with a commitment of resources that would decrease in scope over a medium-term horizon. A disciplined and depoliticized agreement by both U.S. political parties on this goal is essential before the 2020 election cycle introduces even more rhetoric, the inevitable twisting of facts and further policy reversals. We have an obligation to get the next stage and end game right, even if we stumbled along the way. n