Canada's candid PM Harper warns Obama: We'll never defeat Afghan insurgents

Remember way back in the early days of the Obama administration when the president went to Canada on his first foreign trip and as soon as Afghanistan came up in the concluding news conference, the well-briefed new U.S. leader pre-empted a key question by saying he had not asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper for more Canadian troops?

Good thing.

Because, as it turns out, Prime Minister Harper thinks victory for the allies in Afghanistan is simply not going to happen. In a fascinating and surprisingly candid interview with CNN's ever-thoughtful Fareed Zakaria on "GPS," here's what the leader of the United States' closest military ally there said:

"In fact, my own judgment, Fareed, is, quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency."

Coming just days after Obama ordered 17,000 additional U.S. combat troops into that forever-fighting land as a mere holding action, pending further study and possible additional deployments, that's got to be a stunner to the new White House team.

Americans historically have not taken well to not winning wars. The dreaded Q word (quagmire) came up even during the relatively brief fighting of 2001-02.

But throughout the presidential campaign Obama argued that Afghanistan was the real center of the war on terrorism where he would devote his major efforts. Pending an administration review of overall Afghan strategy/policy, Obama ordered the additional troops last week. With more possible later this year.

Canadians have fought with Americans as part of NATO since Day One of 2001's Taliban-ousting. Unlike some NATO contingents, Canadian troops have been fully-engaged around the clock and have lost 108 soldiers, the highest per capita rate of allied forces. In an unusual nonpartisan agreement among major parties, Canadian leaders decided their combat forces would leave Afghanistan at the end of 2011.

Zakaria asked Harper his response if Obama sought additional Canadian forces or a combat mission extension. (See video below) Here's what Harper replied:

"If President Obama were to ask me that question, I would have a question back for him.  And that question would be: What is your plan to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, so they can govern it?

Because there are enormous risks there for us and enormous challenges. And I'm not saying we cannot improve things. But if we think -- our experience has taught us, if we think that we are going to govern Afghanistan for the Afghans, or over the long term be responsible for day-to-day security in Afghanistan, and see that country improve, we are mistaken.

And so, if -- I welcome President Obama's renewed commitment to Afghanistan, the fact that they're sending a lot more American troops. We're delighted to have them, especially in Kandahar, where we need the partner.

But over the long haul, if President Obama wants anybody to do more, I would ask very hard questions about what is the strategy for success and for an eventual departure?"

We have a full video and a transcript of the rest of the Zakaria-Harper exchange on Afghanistan on the jump; scroll down or click the "Read more" line below.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Related Post: Afghan president hopes Obama will "settle down," show "better judgment"

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on CNN's "GPS" with Fareed Zakaria, March 1, 2009:

ZAKARIA: But it sounds like there is very little support in Canada for an extension of Canada's mission, which expires in 2012, am I right?

HARPER:  Yes. It expires at the end of 2011. The issue in Canada, Fareed, I don't think is whether we stay or whether we go. The issue that Canadians ask is, are we being successful?  And...

ZAKARIA:  What's your answer to that right now?

HARPER: Right now, we have made gains. Those gains are not irreversible, so the success has been modest.

ZAKARIA:  So then, why leave?

HARPER: We're not going to win this war just by staying. We're not going to -- in fact, my own judgment, Fareed, is, quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency. Afghanistan has probably had -- my reading of Afghanistan history, it's probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind.

What has to happen in Afghanistan is, we have to have an Afghan government that is capable of managing that insurgency and improving its own governance.

ZAKARIA: So, we are never going to defeat the insurgency. The best we can do is train Afghan forces that can take it on, and then we withdraw.

HARPER:  Absolutely.  Because I think, you know, a part of the calculation there is the fact that, ultimately, the source of authority in Afghanistan has to be perceived as being indigenous. If it's perceived as being foreign -- and I still think we're welcome there -- but if it's perceived as being foreign, it will always have a significant degree of opposition.

ZAKARIA:  Is it your sense that Karzai's government has legitimacy and should be backed?  What do your people tell you?

HARPER:  There is no doubt that governance in Afghanistan has to improve, and has to improve much more quickly than what we've seen in the first -- how many years is it now -- almost eight years?"

Photo credits: Adrian Wyld / Associated Press via Canadian Press (Obama and Harper in Ottawa); Associated Press (A U.S. soldier in Afghanistan); CBC (The bodies of three more Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are returned home in December).

Comments

[milquetoast]

We have Brown of Britain saying: "Thanks, Obama, for bringing your country down to our level. Now, we can work together finally, to instill an environment of 'Social' responsibility around the world!!" We have your paper blaming the 'culture' of America for the drug war in mexico, (I'll put mexico in capital letters when they become an actual country..) and now this guy from baby Canada telling us about what we can and cannot accomplish- and you concurring! I belong to a better, stronger America than any of you, that's factual.

[RAM]

We lost the Afghan war when Cheney and Bush pulled out to invade Iraq. As it was, we had less than a 50-50 chance to affect real change there; it's been tried by others for centuries and hasn't worked. The only possible chance we had to do something that might have worked was to have immediately taken advantage of the general Afghan dissatisfaction with the Taliban and provided the infrastructure--from education to roads--the country needed. That was not done and the war was lost. Everything else will be wrap-up and the question we will have to ask and answer is how many of our young men and women (not to mention Afghans) will be sacrificed before we admit the inevitable.

[Deborah]

Harper is right.

[Bob]

His comments are little different than the arguments about Iraq . . . . ultimately, foreigners can only stay there if the local populace wants them there, that the Taliban/Al Queda are already defeating themselves, as Al Queda/religious extremists in Iraq, with particularly viscious tactics, and that the final solution is political, not military. The safe haven issue of Pakistan could make this another Vietnam but, fortunately, the extremists will ultimately defeat themselves there as well. Al Queda/Taliban are appealing in theory to a long-downtrodden population, but the reality is something quite different.

[Patrick]

Thanks for posting this fascinating exchange, Andrew. I wonder if Harper's reticence may have to do with lingering Canadian opposition to U.S. leadership in the Iraq War. At Global Pulse (www.globalpulsetv.org) this week, we look at how U.S. coverage of Afghanistan compares with perceptions elsewhere in the world. It's great to get some of the Candian perspective here.

[ck]

Harper is right.
It's time for the Afghan government to take charge of their own country and show the world that they can govern.
We can't stay there forever.