Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and congressional Republicans met with top U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan last week amid a shift in strategy from the Obama administration.
McConnell, as well as Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), were in Afghanistan when President Obama announced that he would keep 9,800 troops in the country through most of 2016 before drawing down to 5,500.
{mosads}The Republican leader offered mixed praise for the president’s decision, which was a significant shift from the approximately 1,000 troops Obama had planned to keep in Afghanistan after 2016.
“I will give the president credit for finally getting to the right place on Afghanistan,” McConnell told the Lexington Herald-Leader, but he noted that it came after “three agonizing years” of trying to drawdown U.S. troop levels.
The Republican leader added that in Afghanistan “everybody’s in favor of what the president announced Friday.”
Republicans presidential candidates, including Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), have suggested that Obama made the right decision but also criticized him for saying he’ll drawdown troops to 5,500 before leaving office. Meanwhile, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), both of whom are running for the Democratic presidential nomination, backed Obama’s decision.
McConnell’s office said Monday that in addition to visiting Afghanistan — where they met with officials including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Gen. John Campbell, who is the top U.S. commander in the country — the Republican lawmakers also went to Iraq, Israel and Jordan.
While in Israel they met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.