Prime Minister Stephen Harper rebuffed weeks of overtures from the NATO military alliance and Washington to have Canada commit more troops to an expanded counter-terror and teaching role in the battle-scarred country. The Conservative leader instead offered a modest sum of money to help pay for Afghanistan’s security forces — a move that will both be welcomed at home and blunt the attacks of opposition parties in the House of Commons.
In the weeks leading up to this NATO summit, Harper appeared to be entertaining a renewed military commitment. He ultimately decided on a tough-love approach for Afghanistan.
In essence, he said that the sooner the country is left on its own to sort out the myriad financial, security and political problems, the quicker those problems will be resolved.
“If you ask me frankly would I wish it was earlier, I would say, ‘yes.’ But I think we’re doing it as early as is feasible,” Harper told reporters on the final day of the NATO summit here.
The decision reflects the frustration and fatigue felt across the alliance about a war that has gone on too long, obtained too few successes and cost too much money.
“My judgment is that a foreign presence in the long term cannot be the final resolution of the problems in Afghanistan; that the longer a foreign intervention stays, eventually the less likely its success becomes,” Harper said.
U.S. President Barack Obama appears to share that view, which is reflected in the accelerated timetable agreed to here to pass security responsibilities on to the Afghan military.
Obama said there will be surely be hiccups between now and the end of 2014, when the war will formally end but he is still confident in the approach that was adopted here Monday.
“I don’t think that there’s ever going to be an optimal point where we can say ‘This is all done, this is perfect, this is just the way we want it and now we can wrap up all our equipment and go home,’” he said Monday. “This is a process and it’s sometimes a messy process, just as it was in Iraq.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai also expressed his pleasure and his belief that security gains and the social, governance and other institutional reforms that have occurred over the past decade will be persist, even after foreign combat troops leave.
“The Taliban may have the ability to launch attacks, to explode IEDs, to send suicide bombers, but for them to come over and take over the country, no,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“Afghanistan has moved forward and Afghanistan will defend itself and the progress that Afghanistan has achieved, the people will not allow it to be reversed.”
The plan agreed to at this summit involves a build-up of the Afghan National Army to a peak strength of 352,000 soldiers by the end of 2013. After two years at that level, during which time the hope is that security conditions will improve, the troop levels will drop to a more sustainable 228,500 soldiers.
NATO will then assemble a force of trainers and military advisers to assist the Afghan army. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, arrived in Chicago asking that Canada provide soldiers for that mission.
Instead, Harper committed $110 million annually over three years to fund army operations starting in 2015.
Rasmussen said he appreciated the “significant Canadian financial contribution” but said he wasn’t too disappointed that the offer was not all that had been requested.
“I’m fully aware of the fact that Canada has contributed to major NATO operations for many years,” he said.
Canada’s cash will go into an international pot that NATO hopes will reach $4.1 billion, the estimated cost to sustain the Afghan army.
Half of that money will come from the United States and the Afghan government is expected to pay an escalating amount starting at $500 million in 2015.
Harper said Canada will also make available development assistance for Afghanistan, but any money that is to be managed directly by Karzai’s government will have strict accountability provisions to ensure it is not pilfered, siphoned off or misused by warlords or corrupt Afghan government officials.
“We often work through international institutions instead of Afghan institutions because of concerns that we have,” he said. “I was very frank with President Karzai today as I have been in the past that Afghan governance must improve and we have very real expectations in that regard.”
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Allan Woods
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