US senator urges Obama to suspend plans to reduce US forces in Afghanistan

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday urged President Obama to suspend plans to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

“The one thing I want people to know, if you forget about Afghanistan, you do so at your own peril. This is where 9/11 originated. The president is about to make the most consequential decision of his presidency in a long time about troop levels,” he said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

“Mr. President, this time around, accept sound military advice. … Let the next president, whoever he or she may be, deal with Afghanistan. Please do not cut these troop levels in half. If you do, Afghanistan is going to become Iraq very quickly.”

Graham said the U.S. has made progress against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on the ground in Iraq and Syria, but he added there is no strategy to replace Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“If Assad stays in power in Syria, the war in Syria never ends and you can’t stabilize Iraq,” he said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) added that if the U.S. cuts its troops in Afghanistan and “these forces take over, then there will be further attacks on the United States of America.”

“There’s going to be further attacks on the United States of America as long as they have a base in Syria,” he said, “but then they’ll have another base in Afghanistan.”

This comes as US senator John McCain expressed support for Pakistan’s efforts in the fight against the Taliban after visiting a key tribal district recently retaken by the military, the Pakistani foreign ministry said Sunday.

A four-member, bipartisan US Senate delegation led by the former presidential candidate went to North Waziristan, where in 2014, under US pressure, the army launched an operation to wipe out militant bases and end the near decade-long Islamist insurgency.

In May, the army announced it had successfully cleared the area of militants.