President Donald Trump has asked his advisers “tough questions” about American strategy in Afghanistan and is not willing to continue on as before, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Monday.
The White House has launched a review of the US plan for Afghanistan after 16 years of war, and reports suggest that Trump’s national security team is divided on whether to send more troops or to pull out.
Speaking in Manila on the sidelines of a regional security forum, Tillerson did not reveal his own advice to the president -- but said Trump would not be content with continuing the fight as before.
“The president is not willing to accept that, so he is asking some tough questions,” Tillerson told reporters.
Tillerson said the president’s National Security Council has met three times on the issue and that Vice President Mike Pence has joined Trump in taking a close interest in the strategy review.
“The president is asking some very, very pointed questions, and I think good questions that he should be asking,” Tillerson said.
“And perhaps these are questions that no-one has been willing to raise in the past,” he continued.
“So we want to give him good thorough answers and good thorough analysis to go with that — a very clear-eyed view, a very realistic view of what the future is likely to look like.”