NATO Can't Defeat Afghan Insurgency, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Says

NATO Can't Defeat Afghan Insurgency, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Says

(News Source Info) OTTAWA– March 2, 2009: The United States has to come up with a viable Afghan exit strategy before Canada would consider staying on in the country past 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. In an interview broadcast Sunday with CNN, the Conservative leader sought to lower expectations about prospects for the insurgency-riddled country.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Tuesday, Feb.3, 2009. He said Canada has had modest success over the course of its eight-year effort, but that any gains were vulnerable if the security situation were to worsen. Yet simply staying the course in Afghanistan is not going to result in an inevitable victory. "My own judgement ... quite frankly is we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency. My reading of Afghan history is that it's probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind," Harper said in the interview, which was recorded last Monday in New York. "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." U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is in the middle of a 60-day strategic review of the international mission, and has sought input from NATO and other allies. A clearer vision on Washington's new direction in the central Asian country is expected to emerge when NATO leaders meet in France next month. Obama is also expected to start tapping other countries to prolong or scale-up their military and development efforts in Afghanistan. "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," Harper said. The Prime Minister challenged the perception that extending Canada's participation in the war would be an unpopular move. "The issue in Canada ... is, I don't think, whether we stay or whether we go. The issue that Canadians ask is are we being successful," he said. "Right now we have made gains. Those gains are not irreversible, so the success has been modest."