U.S. not abandoning Afghanistan, Kaine tells regional leaders
Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., assured political leaders and diplomats at a security summit in Bahrain Friday that the United States has no plans to abandon the Middle East and connecting regions, despite a significant reduction of forces in Iraq and President Barack Obama’s vow to end combat operations in Afghanistan after 2014.
“We are not withdrawing from the region and we are not rebalancing somewhere else,” Kaine said in a phone interview from Manama, the capital and largest city of Bahrain.
Kaine said the U.S. is open to negotiate a continuation of an American military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
“We think that will be helpful to the country. We’ve seen such tremendous gains and we want to continue to be there providing training and assisting. But the question is if Afghanistan wants us to do it or not, that’s for them to decide,” he said.
The Obama administration last month reiterated its position that there may be no residual force in Afghanistan after 2014 unless President Hamid Karzai signs a new security agreement with the U.S.
According to a statement released by the administration in November, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told Karzai that, “without a prompt signature, the U.S. would have no choice but to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no U.S. or NATO troop presence in Afghanistan.”
Kaine traveled to Bahrain Thursday to visit the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. Fifth Fleet. On Friday, he participated in a panel discussion at the 2013 Manama Dialogue, an annual security summit hosted by the Institute for International Strategic Studies.
Kaine said he planned to convey the message that the U.S. must re-evaluate its role in the region and expand its circle of strategic partners.
“The attack of 9/11 gave us a very focused lens through which to view our foreign policy responsibilities – and that was fighting terrorism,” Kaine said.
“While that topic retains a continuing and significant vitality for us, that is not a broad enough foreign policy for a nation as great as ours. As we are now out of Iraq and drawing down forces out of Afghanistan, it is a good time to have this discussion with our allies in the region,” he said.
As member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the Middle East Subcommittee, Kaine said he is “wrestling with those questions every day.”
Kaine said that the U.S. will not only to continue being a military power in the region, but use other means – such as “aggressive diplomacy” and trade – to protect its interests.
“Diplomacy has been an under-exercised muscle in recent years,” Kaine said. “The recent announcement of the significant diplomatic work being done with Iran to stop their nuclear program is an example of how importantly we view this region.”
The U.S. has the strongest military in the world on display in the region and is doing “great work right in this neighborhood” to keep the sea lanes open in the Persian Gulf, “so that commerce in this very important part of the world can continue,” Kaine said.
“And we have great partners who appreciate what we do. We have demonstrated even in the last couple of years that we are willing to participate in significant military action in the Middle East, in North Africa and Libya, and we were willing to work together with NATO colleagues and the Arab League.”
Kaine also said the U.S. played a major role in the “diplomatic breakthrough leading to the destruction of chemical weapons” in Syria, adding to efforts following the announcement of Nov. 25 that the UN will convene talks in Geneva to look for a negotiated settlement of Syria’s civil war.
“No one can question the United States’ role in being aggressive about diplomacy in this region, and I think there is a new age of more vigorous diplomacy,” Kaine said.
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