During her visit to Afghanistan yesterday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice apparently reiterated the US ultimatum, demanding that President Karzai sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) by the end of the year or face a full withdrawal of US occupation forces in 2014.
The threat is intended to coax Karzai into signing the deal quickly, instead of waiting until April’s elections, on the idea that the Afghan government couldn’t survive without occupation forces backing them up.
While that’s possibly the case, it’s not a big threat to Karzai, whose term in office ends in 2014 at any rate, and may well leave the country to avoid legal retaliation if his successor ends up being a political rival.
The Karzai government also doesn’t think the threat is a sincere one, since the Pentagon has repeatedly said there had been no consideration of not having ground troops in the nation in 2015. Though the Obama Administration is playing up the idea of growing talks about it, it remains unclear if leaving is really an option they’re considering, or just an idle threat aimed at avoiding Karzai’s demands for better terms.
Fictional Karzai with gonads: "bring your full withdrawal on already"
Karzai knows US forces can't possibly be out of Afghanistan until after his term ends, so the payoffs will continue until he has a chance to make an exit. Far too much profit is being made in Afghanistan for the US to simply leave in 2014. The US military, corporations, and banks have a cash cow they don't intend to stop milking until it's dry. The US is bluffing, and Karzai knows it.
This "threat" by the US is one of the most ridiculous bluffs I've ever seen.
Also:
Karzi "may well leave the country to avoid legal retaliation if his successor ends up being a political rival."
Bush didn't have to think about leaving the country. He knew Obama was not his "political rival". They are birds of a feather, albeit Obama is some 300+% more trigger happy with the terrorism drones.