Barack Obama formally ordered the Pentagon on Tuesday to make plans for a full pullout of American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, pointing to a way out of the conflict that is reminiscent of his end to the Iraq campaign.



While the Obama administration reiterated that it would prefer to maintain a residual military presence in Afghanistan, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has refused to sign an accord that would pave the way for some US forces to remain. That has forced the administration to begin a contingency plan for a full departure after Nato formally ends hostilities in November.

A similar rebuke from the Iraqi government prompted all almost all US troops to leave there in 2011.

Obama told Karzai during a Tuesday morning phone call that while he would prefer Karzai or his successor to sign the so-called bilateral security agreement reached with the Afghans in November, “the United States is moving forward with additional contingency planning,” according to a White House description of the call.

But defense secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that it was prudent “to ensure adequate plans are in place to accomplish an orderly withdrawal by the end of the year should the United States not keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014”.

Hagel said that over the next several months, the US military will prepare “various options” for US and Nato leaders, including a full withdrawal of the approximately 37,000 US troops in Afghanistan, as well as the post-2014 missions of counter-terrorism and training for the Afghan security forces it has long desired.

The White House confirmed that Obama’s phone call to Karzai had been triggered in part by an urgent need to give clarity to Nato allies about any future US presence in Afghanistan.

“One of the reasons for the call is because Secretary Hagel will be participating in the Nato defence ministerial later this week and planning for post 2014 forces will be on the agenda,” said spokesman Jay Carney.

However, White House officials played down calls from Congress to cut off aid to Afghanistan if US troops are not allowed to stay, a major fear of politicians in Kabul.



“We have made clear that our commitment to Afghanistan – separate from the troop presence – is in our national security interests,” said Carney when asked about aid.



The White House rejected criticism that Obama had allowed a dangerous lack of communication with Karzai to develop. Prior to today’s call, the two leaders had barely spoken in months.



“It is preposterous to suggest [that Karzai’s refusal to sign the BSA] is because we have not made clear that it is to be signed,” said Carney.



The White House also warned that even if the security agreement was signed imminently, the size of the US commitment may now be in doubt.



“We remain open to the possibility of a post-2014 presence and the BSA being signed later this year, but the longer we go without it, the more the likelihood is that we will be smaller both in scale and ambition,” added Carney.



Since November, the Pentagon has urged Karzai to sign the deal, but has stopped short of formally preparing for what is known as the “zero option,” or full withdrawal.

Relations between the Afghan government and the US military have been strained over the past several weeks. Earlier this month, the Kabul-based military command, under marine general Joseph Dunford, sharply rebuked its erstwhile Afghanistan partners for releasing 65 detainees it said had US and Afghan blood on their hands.



Dunford is said to favor a residual force in Afghanistan of around 10,000 troops, fearing that a full US departure after December will leave Afghanistan vulnerable to a reinvigorated push from the Taliban insurgents the US and its allies have failed to subdue after 12 years of war. Dunford will testify before the Senate armed services committee about US plans for Afghanistan on 12 March, the committee announced Tuesday.

Administration officials told the Guardian that they expected to discuss a future presence or full withdrawal from Afghanistan in Brussels at a Nato summit of defense ministers later this week.

Preparations for a withdrawal from Afghanistan are complicated by the fact that the use of air bases there are not solely focused on waging war. Bases like Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east are also platforms for flying surveillance and armed drones into neighboring Pakistan, and surveillance drones have also likely flown from Kandahar into Iran.

Losing access to Afghan air bases may likely prompt the US to look for alternative regional launchpads in central Asian states, an uncertain prospect complicated by their dismal human rights records. In 2005, Uzbekistan revoked US access to its Karshi-Khanabad air base following a diplomatic row over a bloody crackdown that May in Andijan province.

The Pentagon did not comment on any airbase negotiations, but a spokeswoman, Navy commander Elissa Smith, said “regardless of the outcome of the BSA, the United States will take the steps necessary to combat terrorism and protect our interests”.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hagel was scheduled to meet at the White House with secretary of state John Kerry and Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser.

Should an elected successor to Karzai also decline to sign the bilateral accord, it would mark the second time in three years that the host government of a bloody, protracted US military campaign rebuked its Washington sponsor.

In 2011, the Iraqi government refused to allow Obama to maintain a residual presence in Iraq – a decision Obama used to campaign for reelection on a tide of ending US wars, and which has come under harsh scrutiny after forces loyal to al-Qaida proclaimed themselves in control of parts of Anbar province last month.

Claude Chafin, a spokesman for House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon, a California Republican, accused the White House of wanting the Afghans to force the US out.

“Certainly Chairman McKeon is disappointed that negotiations seem to have broken down. He wonders if BSA talks would have played out differently had the president committed to maintaining public support for his strategy. If the American people were aware of our achievements in Afghanistan, if they were aware of how far the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] had come, would they be more willing to side with our Afghan allies and wait Karzai out?,” Chafin said.



“That is, in any case, what the president should do. A residual force post-2014 is in our national security interest and that of our Afghan allies. The Afghan people want us to stay, and the leading Afghan Presidential candidates support the BSA. There is little point in diplomatic brinkmanship with Karzai, he is quickly becoming irrelevant to the process. Such rhetoric only furthers the narrative that we suspect the White House wants to build: like Iraq, we were willing to stay, but we couldn’t reach an agreement. No one wants Afghanistan to end like Iraq – because the consequences for future US security and interests can be dire.”