President Barack Obama announced a plan yesterday to start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in a first step towards ending the long, costly war and returning America's focus towards its own troubled economy.
Mr Obama said he would pull 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by year's end, followed by about 23,000 more by the end of next summer and a steady withdrawal of remaining troops after that.
In a 15-minute televised address, Mr Obama vowed that the United States - struggling to restore its global image, repair its faltering economy and bring down the high jobless rate at home - would end a decade of military adventures prompted by the September 11th attacks in 2001 and exercise new restraint with US military power.
"Tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding," Mr Obama said, heralding the gradual drawdown of US forces in Iraq and the limited US involvement in the ongoing international campaign in Libya. "America, it is time to focus on nation-building at home."
French president Nicolas Sarkozy said today he would follow the United States in starting a gradual troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in a move that could boost his popularity before a 2012 election. Mr Sarkozy said troops sent for reinforcement would start returning in a time frame similar to the US force withdrawal.
News that Mr Obama will pull the entire "surge" force he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 is certain to fuel friction between the president and his military advisers who have warned about the perils of a hasty drawdown.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military joint chiefs of staff, acknowledged that Mr Obama's plans to withdraw nearly a third of the troops by the end of next summer was a riskier plan than he had initially wanted.
"The president's decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept," Mr Mullen told a House of Representatives committee hearing, in his first comments on the plan.
"More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course. But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take."
Nearly 10 years after the Taliban government was toppled, US and Nato forces have been unable to deal a decisive blow to the resurgent Islamist group. The Afghan government remains weak and notoriously corrupt, and billions of dollars in foreign aid efforts have yielded meagre results.
Mr Obama's decision on trimming the US force was a more aggressive approach than many expected. It went beyond the options offered by Gen David Petraeus, the outgoing commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, whom the president has picked to lead the CIA.
Mr Obama's decision reflected the competing pressures he faces as he seeks to curb spending and halt US casualties without allowing the threat of extremist attacks to fester.
Outgoing defence secretary Robert Gates said he supported the decision. But the plan is unlikely to sit well with the Pentagon's top brass who worry insurgents could regain lost territory as fighting intensifies along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.
"We've undercut a strategy that was working. I think the 10,000 troops leaving this year is going to make this fighting season more difficult. Having all the surge forces leave by next summer is going to compromise next summer's fighting season," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Even after the withdrawal of the 33,000 US troops, about 70,000 will remain in Afghanistan, about twice the number there when Mr Obama took office.
Reaction from the Congress was mixed, as lawmakers impatient with a war that now costs more than $110 billion (€76 million) a year complained Mr Obama should have embraced a larger drawdown.
Unease in Washington over the war has escalated with worries about massive budget deficits, spiralling national debt and unemployment running at more than 9 per cent. These are Americans' chief concerns and the issues likely to drive voters in next year's presidential election.
Reuters