Asserting that the prime reason for America's failure in Afghanistan is a "lack of successful policy and strategic guidance" from Washington, Top Republican Senator John McCain today urged the White House to resolve its internal differences on the Afghan policy.
"The reason for this failure is a lack of successful policy and strategic guidance from Washington over many years, which has continued in the first several months of this new administration. Our commanders-in-chief, not our commanders in the field, are responsible for this failure," he said.
McCain, the Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, was responding to a news report that President Donald Trump wants to fire his commander in Afghanistan Gen John Nicholson.
"Gen Nicholson has served our country with honour and distinction for 35 years. He has earned the trust and admiration of those he has served with. And he has earned my full confidence," McCain said as he referred to the testimony of Nicholson before the Armed Services Committee.
Six months ago, Gen Nicholson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and warned that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan, said Trump who differed with both Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama on the US policy in Afghanistan.
Trump, who participated in a veteran's health related event in the Roosevelt Office of the White House, however, did not respond to a shouted question on news reports that he wants to fire Gen Nicholson.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC that Trump isn't wrong in the sense that US policy in Afghanistan has failed in as much as that its goal was to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban.
"The irony of all of this is that I think, by now, we should have figured out a military-only solution in Afghanistan will never work. That unless you purge that government of corruption, unless you give it legitimacy with the Afghanistan people, the Taliban will always be on the edges of that country ready to come back in," Murphy said.
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