Huntsman says Afghanistan mission doesn't serve strategic interest

Washington (CNN) - Soon-to-be presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has joined the ranks of the GOP contenders raising serious doubts about whether the U.S. should continue its mission in Afghanistan.

"It's a tribal state, and it always will be. Whether we like it or not, whenever we withdraw from Afghanistan, whether it's now or years from now, we'll have an incendiary situation...Should we stay and play traffic cop? I don't think that serves our strategic interests," Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China, told Esquire Magazine. In excerpts released Wednesday of its upcoming story, Huntsman said if the U.S. can't "define a winning strategy for the American people, where we somehow come out ahead, then we're wasting our money, and we're wasting our strategic resources."