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Pence on Afghanistan Strategy: US Ends 16-Year Effort to Impose 'Democracy'

© AP Photo / David GoldmanSoldiers with the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Hawaii, pull security as a Blackhawk helicopter lands during an assessment mission to Observation Point Mace days after insurgents attacked four outposts in the area killing some two dozen members of Afghan security forces Saturday, July 9, 2011 in Kunar province, Afghanistan
Soldiers with the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment based in Hawaii, pull security as a Blackhawk helicopter lands during an assessment mission to Observation Point Mace days after insurgents attacked four outposts in the area killing some two dozen members of Afghan security forces Saturday, July 9, 2011 in Kunar province, Afghanistan - Sputnik International
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A key goal of US policy toward Afghanistan - imposing an American-style democracy with power resting in an elected president and legislature based in the capital - has been abandoned by the Trump administration in a new effort to end 16 years of war, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in an opinion article published on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The article touched on other aspects of President Donald Trump's strategy — unveiled in a Monday evening speech — such as stepped up diplomatic efforts and increased military power.

"To be clear: America’s goal in Afghanistan is not to impose democracy or a strong central government that runs counter to Afghanistan’s tradition of local autonomy," Pence stated in the article published in the USA Today.

However, by abandoning US insistence that Afghanistan adhere to a Western model of centralized democratic government — with co-equal presidential, legislative and judicial branches, Pence appears to have rejected a fundamental principle guiding US intervention in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai holds a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the Presidential Palace on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013 in Kabul. Kerry and Karzai held talks on the bilateral security agreement. - Sputnik International
Karzai Slams New US' Afghan Strategy as 'Trump More Focused on War & Rivalries'
The present Afghan constitution was drafted by a team of US and Afghan legal experts who spent a year working in secret during the early 1990s.

The draft constitution was released in November 2003 and was approved by a constitutional loya jirga, or grand council, in early 2004. While the document requires that laws be consistent with Islam, the constitution also establishes a government that structurally resembles that in the United States.

Beyond the capital of Kabul, the Taliban terror group (outlawed in Russia) today controls more territory than in 2002, when it was ousted from power in a US-led invasion, according to US military officials.

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