'Opposed to Afghan troop withdrawal, Taliban peace talks'

Republican Senator John McCain also opposed the plan to reduce the strength of the Afghan national security forces post 2014 and accused Obama of overruling advice of his commanders on Afghanistan.

"The effect of these and other decisions has been strategically debilitating. It sends the signal to everyone in Afghanistan and the region, both friend and enemy alike, that the United States has lost the will for this fight… that we are hell-bent on leaving Afghanistan regardless of conditions on the ground… that the Taliban is literally coming back, starting with the five detainees possibly headed to Doha.

"...And that the international community will not even help our willing Afghan partners to sustain a sufficient number of forces to lead this fight on their own," McCain said.

None of this may be true, he said, adding, "I can assure you that it is the perception in Afghanistan and the region. And perception is reality. This set of incentives only emboldens our enemies to keep fighting. It encourages the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence to continue hedging their bets by supporting terrorist proxies as a source of strategic depth in Afghanistan.

"It leads our Afghan allies to hedge their bets as well by making counterproductive choices about governance and corruption due to their fears of what a post-American future will bring in Afghanistan."

Obama, he alleged, overruled his commanders, choosing to withdraw the full surge earlier than the military recommended.

"After the initial decision on troop levels lengthened the campaign, this decision denied our commanders the full combat power they had wanted to employ against the Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan during the coming fighting season," McCain said in his address to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think-tank.

"In addition, the administration is now planning to cut the end-strength of the Afghan National Security Forces from 352,000 to 230,000. The rationale offered is that the larger number is a surge force, and it can be drawn down to the lower number in a matter of years after 2014.

"That is a hard argument to swallow from a military standpoint, and the Afghan defence minister has been critical of it in those terms. Furthermore, how can it make sense to begin laying off 120,000 well-trained Afghan combat veterans in 2014 and sending them into what will surely be a dim job market? We saw a similar movie before in Iraq, and it did not end well," he said.

McCain said US needs to be realistic. "Reconciliation with the Taliban will not happen because we want to stop fighting. It will happen when we have broken their will to keep fighting."