From our partners at The Agonist
Washington | July 18
AFP – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday named veteran diplomats to be the next ambassadors to Afghanistan and Pakistan, two highly sensitive positions vacated when envoys recently resigned.
Obama named Richard Olson, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, to serve in Pakistan and James Cunningham, the number two at the US embassy in Kabul, to be the ambassador, a White House statement said.
The two men will need confirmation by the Senate. They would serve as the United States prepares to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan in 2014, a transition that profoundly impacts rocky relations with Pakistan.
