Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized President Obama on Thursday, saying the roughly 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan should remain there until the next president takes office in 2017, according to an article on The Hill, Oct, 15.
 
“President Obama should maintain at least the current level of forces through the end of his presidency,” he said in a statement. “This would allow the next president to reassess the situation as it exists at the end of 2016 and make decisions about our commitment to Afghanistan going forward based on the best military advice at that time.”
Earlier, Obama announced that the United States would keep 9,800 troop in Afghanistan for most of 2016 before drawing down to 5,500 troops.
 
That was an increase from the “normal” embassy presence — approximately 1,000 troops — the president has previously said would be in Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
 
Obama’s decision to delay the drawdown of U.S. troops puts the issue of Afghanistan squarely in the middle of the 2016 presidential election, which is already full of foreign policy from the Iran nuclear deal to the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
 
Rubio, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, added on Thursday that Obama is “prematurely” announcing the decision to reduce troops to 5,500, adding that “our presence in Afghanistan should be dictated by battlefield conditions, which are impossible to predict more than a year in advance.”
 
Republicans have repeatedly criticized Obama, suggesting that he was willing to stick to a drawdown plan for political and legacy reasons while ignoring conditions on the ground.
 
Separately, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) suggested Obama is proposing a level lower than what is being recommended by U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan and that 5,500 “will not be sufficient to perform the critical tasks being set for them.”
 
Obama made the announcement after weeks of speculation that the administration was rethinking its strategy in Afghanistan because of a resurgent Taliban in northern Afghanistan and ISIS’s growing presence in the country.
 
Obama suggested on Thursday that further timeline adjustments could be made if needed.