After months of on and off negotiations, the U.S. and Afghanistan have announced a strategic partnership agreement that ensures an American presence in Afghanistan until at least 2024. That’s a full decade after U.S. combat troops are scheduled to withdraw from the country in 2014. But the agreement, whose text was not released, does not include many specifics at all. There’s no specific dollar amounts for U.S. aid listed and the plan doesn’t lay out what role the American security presence will play.Which begs the question: is the agreement more of a symbolic, rather than a substantive victory, for the American-Afghan relationship? And with so little detail, how much weight should be placed on the pact?
We’re joined by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University.