General's sacking stirs up Europe's Afghan doubts
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US President Barack Obama's dramatic firing of the head of the multinational forces in Afghanistan has again highlighted fundamental disagreements over NATO's strategy. News of the dismissal has not gone down well in Europe, where support for the mission is dwindling fast.
General Stanley McChrystal was dismissed for remarks published in American magazine, Rolling Stone, in which he criticised senior US administrators and appeared to disagree with the White House's Afghan strategy.
NATO and EU leaders stood by the US president's decision and echoed his statement that this does not indicate a change in policy. But analysts say that this trouble at the top will only increase Europeans' doubts about continuing to take part in the already unpopular mission.
Afghanistan is a touchy subject that has already claimed a number of scalps in EU politics.
The Dutch government was toppled in March in a row over whether extend the deployment of its troops and the German president, Horst Koehler, stepped down last month after making controversial comments about Germany's role in the conflict.
Many of the EU countries contributing to the NATO mission are seeing public support drop rapidly and politicians are taking heed.
In Poland, the frontrunner in the presidential election, Bronislaw Komorowski, is campaigning on a promise to pull all of the country's 2,600 troops out of Afghanistan in 2012.
Right after McChrystal's dismissal, more bad news came from Kabul. Four British soldiers were killed in an accident today, making June the deadliest single month for US-led foreign forces there in nearly nine years of conflict.
