State Dept. Moves to Shut Office Planning Afghanistan Strategy<br />The office of the special representative for Afghanistan<br />and Pakistan, which once drew experts from nearly a dozen government agencies, will be folded into the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, people briefed on the decision said on Friday.<br />Vali said that The Pentagon is contemplating more war in Afghanistan, while the State Department is shutting down the office<br />that could give it a voice in that important development,<br />By MARK LANDLERJUNE 23, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — The State Department is winding down an Obama-era office responsible for developing long-range strategy in Afghanistan<br />and Pakistan — just as the Trump administration conducts a major review of the future of America’s longest war.<br />that elevated the importance of the diplomatic and political equities to b<br />President Barack Obama created the office in January 2009 when he named Richard C. Holbrooke, a celebrated diplomat who<br />brokered the Dayton peace accords to end the Bosnian war, as the first special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.<br />In a statement, the State Department said Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson had not made a final decision about the future of the office.
