Mediaboss Marketing

A NATO soldier opens fire in an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of journalists near the main gate of Camp Qargha, west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014. A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on foreign troops at a military base, causing casualties, an Afghan military spokesman said. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) AP

When President Obama and other leaders belonging to the NATO coalition meet this week in Newport, Wales, they'll have plenty on their plate to discuss, between Russia's hostility toward Ukraine and the growing threat from ISIS. Before tackling those subjects, however, they'll have to address the unexpectedly complicated situation in Afghanistan.

Play Video

President Obama discusses what lessons the U.S. and Afghanistan can learn from the violence plaguing Iraq.

After 13 years of war in Afghanistan, NATO allies expected that this week's summit would mark the smooth withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. NATO countries are expected to keep troops there past this year with the mission of training and advising Afghan security forces. Now, however, with the results of Afghanistan's presidential elections unclear, it's unclear what role the U.S. and NATO will play there.

"When the summit was announced a year ago, everyone thought this would be a meeting in which NATO... would celebrate the end of the mission," Ivo Daalder, former U.S. permanent representative to NATO and president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told reporters Wednesday. "The developments in Afghanistan have put a monkey wrench in that part of the conversation."

The United States and its allies have been waiting for months for Afghan leadership to sign a bilateral security agreement (BSA) that would provide the legal framework for the U.S. to keep troops in Afghanistan past this year -- critically, that would include immunity for troops. However, outgoing President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the agreement. The two candidates competing to replace Karzai, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, have agreed to sign it, but both are contesting the election results.

Without a signed agreement protecting U.S. troops, the U.S. would pull all troops out of Afghanistan, and NATO allies would follow.

"I think there's a lot of nervousness... particularly on the military side, in terms of the timelines," Kathleen Hicks, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told reporters last week. "If there's not a BSA for the U.S. -- and ergo, not a BSA for NATO with Afghanistan -- that there would have to be a very stressful timeline to pull out troops."

Yet with no political agreement in sight, no head of state from Afghanistan will be present at the NATO summit.

Read this article:
Obama and NATO face uncertainty instead of closure in Afghanistan