The stakes of the ISAF troops in Afghanistan should be completed as early as next year.

Government reacts in surprise announcement in Kabul by U.S. and NATO

The gradual withdrawal of NATO combat operations by the mid-2013 would not alter the transfer of security responsibility. This will give over until the end of 2014 the Afghan army and police, Rasmussen said on Thursday at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. According to Rasmussen, this time frame is nothing new.

Prior to Rasmussen, the U.S. Defense Leon Panetta had expressed to the withdrawal plans. The American forces in Afghanistan should use the fight against the middle or the end of 2013 and from then stop swirling in an advisory role.
Deduction until the end of 2014

The U.S. had previously said they would withdraw most of its combat troops by the end of 2014. The new schedule agree with the Lisbon strategy, NATO said Panetta.

An American military report says the Taliban will assume that they will rule the country again in the future. A return of the Taliban after the withdrawal of NATO-ISAF would be a political setback for the international community, which has spent billions for it to topple the Taliban and establish a democratic system in the country.
Role of electoral politics

Even the French President Nicolas Sarkozy had already declared that the French troops should withdraw until 2013. Like Sarkozy, U.S. President Barack Obama is fighting this year by his re-election. A more rapid end of the costly combat mission could provide both buoyancy in the voters.

Afghanistan reacted to the surprise announcement of Panetta. “The decision to prefer one years, this raises the total planning for the transition to the winds,” it said in the Afghan government. So that all preparations should be accelerated dramatically. The Afghan government had not been informed in advance.