US weighs cost of letting Afghanistan go its own way

Ernesto Londono & Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post (USA)
In January, when U.S. officials first raised the prospect of keeping no troops in Afghanistan after 2014, this "zero option" was broadly seen as a rhetorical bargaining chip the White House was using to nudge along talks over a long-term security agreement. But an increasingly acrimonious stalemate between the officials and Afghanistan’s recalcitrant president has made the prospect quite real.