Defense News quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Claude Rakisits on the Afghan-US Bilateral Security Agreement: 

Claude Rakisits, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, however, is generally more supportive and says it disproves previous Pakistani fears.

“Pakistani academics, analysts and officials, civilian and military, have been asserting in the lead-up to 2014 that the US would once again leave Pakistan to its own devices as it had after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989,” he said.

“This was never going to be the case because the two situations are completely different in time [25 years] and the issues [terrorism was not present and Pakistan is now a nuclear-armed state],” he added.

Therefore, he believes “America’s continued presence in Afghanistan, albeit a limited one in numbers and in time, will be good news for bilateral relations between Islamabad and Washington.”

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Related Experts: Claude Rakisits