Harper's J-turn on Afghanistan
Did it mean, as the defeatist chorus in certain sections of the media triumphantly proclaimed (triumphalist defeatists?), that Stephen Harper had buckled to his critics? Was The Toronto Star’s Tom Walkom right to claim, on the strength of this one statement, that “Canada's Kandahar adventure is effectively finished,” that “Canadian soldiers will continue to die in Afghanistan's south until the mission reaches its official end, 19 months from now,” but after that it’s back to the barracks? Should we trust the Globe and Mail’s Lawrence Martin’s judgement that “these were code words for the end of our war mission,” that “in a year and a half, other [NATO] partners can take their turn at the combat role.”
I don’t believe it. That’s not what the Prime Minister said, and it doesn’t fit with anything else we know about him. I know he’s reversed himself before, sometimes spectacularly. But this is something that goes to his very core. I do not believe that the same man who not a month ago, on his second visit to Afghanistan, declared that “our work is not complete,” that “we cannot just put down our arms and hope for peace”, that “we can't set arbitrary deadlines and simply wish for the best,” would suddenly have decided to do just that.
What in fact did the Prime Minister say? He said “I would hope that the view of Canadians is not to simply abandon Afghanistan. I think there is some expectation that there would be a new role after February 2009, but obviously those decisions have yet to be taken.” He said “this mission will end in February 2009. Should Canada be involved militarily after that date, we've been clear that would have to be approved by the Canadian Parliament.” And he said this: “I would want to see some degree of consensus around that. I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field.”
Perhaps my decoder ring is not working as well as Lawrence’s, but I don’t see any U-turns in this. What I see, rather, is a J-turn. It’s straight out of Jean Chretien’s playbook. You run into too much resistance with a given policy thrust, you take a couple of steps back. Lacking a flashpoint, the issue subsides, your opponents relax their guard -- only to see it come crashing back months or even years later, when the time is right.
It’s a much subtler strategy than simply attempting to run straight over the opposition, not least in a minority government. By declaring that he will seek consensus on any future deployment, the Prime Minister shifts the focus from his own intransigence to the opposition’s. He implicates them in the decision, and in so doing puts the onus on them to explain their position.
And explain it they must. The NDP’s at least has a kind of coherence. They are against fighting the Taliban, preferring to negotiate -- though what incentive the Taliban would have to negotiate after we had declared we would not fight them would be interesting to hear. The Liberals, on the other hand, would seem to believe that the Taliban should be fought, just not by us; that our troops should be there, but not use their weapons.
All right, I’ll bite: who should fight them? Whom do the Liberals nominate to replace us, among the countries that have refused to fight thus far? The French? The Italians? How are they to be compelled to step forward, even as we retreat? The reality is that, should Canada pull out of the fighting, the gap will have to be filled by the countries that are doing it now -- the British, the Americans and the Dutch. Their mission won’t end in February 2009. Only ours will.
And for what purpose? To whose benefit? The Afghans? No, it is quite clear they want us there. The troops? No, they are equally adamant, in every interview I have ever seen: they want to be there. Our NATO partners? Obviously not. The only agenda served by the opposition’s demands is … the opposition’s.
There’s another sense in which it is a good thing to seek “consensus” from the opposition. Read the last part of the Prime Minister’s remarks: “I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field.” Translated: that’s exactly what’s happening now.
The Taliban read the western press. They are looking for the weak link in the NATO chain, and having found it, they will exploit it -- by killing as many soldiers from that country as they can. If critics of the war should not be accused of supporting the Taliban, neither should critics of the critics be accused of suppressing debate if they point out that there are consequences to their fecklessness. The Prime Minister has invited them to grow up. They should accept.
6/27/2007
