Obama’s Afghan pullback

President Obama on Tuesday announced a major cutback of US troops in Afghanistan — a day before he’s to deliver a major speech at West Point defending what critics have called his failed foreign policy.

“The president will put on an incredible charm offensive because not just his critics but everybody believes his foreign policy is failing,” James Carafano, a foreignpolicy expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The Post.

“He would not be making this speech if things weren’t terribly, awfully, horribly bad.”

Speaking from the White House, Obama vowed to slash the current US force in Afghanistan from 32,000 to 9,800 by the start of next year.

That number would be cut in half throughout 2015 and be consolidated in the capital of Kabul and at Bagram Airfield, the main US base in Afghanistan.

Most of those remaining forces would then be withdrawn by the end of 2016, leaving fewer than 1,000 behind in Kabul.

“We have now been in Afghanistan longer than many Americans expected,” Obama said. “Now we’re finishing the job we’ve started.”

The president said American military personnel, first deployed within a month of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, dealt crippling blows to al Qaeda, killed Osama bin Laden, and prevented the Taliban from using Afghanistan to stage attacks on the United States. Bob Fredericks