The Periscope Post

President Barack Obama’s 2011 schedule for withdrawing from Afghanistan has left Afghanistan and Pakistan more than a little worried, The New York Times reported this morning.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta told The New York Times that Obama’s announcement was like “shock therapy,” but worrying. And editorial in The Nation, a Pakistani newspaper, decried Obama’s policy as more of a “whimper of a statement rather than a new policy commencing with a bang,” and claimed that Obama’s strategy is just a continuation of former President George W. Bush’s. The editorial also expressed the fear that a US troop draw down would result in increased destabilization in Pakistan, as Afghan militants cross the porous border between the two countries.

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have not commented on the plan. Pakistani media reports that the country would “closely engage” with the US in fully understanding the implications of the new strategy in Afghanistan, specifically those potentially adverse implications for Pakistan.

However, echoing Republican concerns that announcing an exit strategy would send the wrong signal to the region, one Pakistani official speaking to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said, “The most serious issue, as far as we see it, is the exit date.”

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke with Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Yousef Raza Gilani, at a joint pres conference this morning, reassuring Gilani that Britian will continue to support Pakistan’s counter terror efforts, the BBC reported. Brown, the BBC adds, did not reissue his appeal that Pakistan do more to find Osama Bin Laden; Gilani, meanwhile, took the opportunity to say that he didn’t think Bin Laden was currently in Pakistan. Speaking to The Nation before the press conference, Gilani said that he wanted to make it clear that Pakistan has sacrificed more than any other country on the frontlines of the war on terror.

The Telegraph reported today that Obama’s plan has continued to face backlash from many corners, especially regarding the proposed timing of an American exit from the region. British forces will not begin to leave Afghanistan until 2014, Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff is quoted in the Telegraph.

Obama’s aides have scrambled to clarify that the 18-month timeline is not an absolute and that American troops will only begin to leave the area in 2011. Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US’s NATO commander in Afghanistan who’d previously requested 40,000 additional American troops, said in the Telegraph that “the 18 month time line is not an absolute and then everyone leaves.”

However, even as media report backlash against Obama’s plan, members of the NATO alliance have pledged more troops to the cause. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General who yesterday applauded Obama’s plan, said he was confident that the alliance would supply a further 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers, the Telegraph reported. The BBC is also reporting that Italy has pledged an additional 1,000 soldiers, to join the 3,200 Italian soldiers currently serving in the area.