Messy Afghan withdrawal could cost 'credits' in Washington Lawrence Cannon's briefing package highlights importance of mission in wooing US. By Carl Meyer Published February 3, 2010

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Briefing notes prepared for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon upon his ascendancy to the job in October 2008 show a direct correlation between the Canadian mission in Afghanistan and currying favour in Washington for other interests.

The notes also highlight the delicate task Canada faces in pulling out in 2011 without squandering whatever credit it has managed to secure—a job some say has been poorly managed given recent criticism of Canada's position.

"The refurbishment of the Canadian Forces and the effort Canada has made in Afghanistan has won us considerable credit in Washington," reads the briefing note, obtained by Embassy under Access to Information legislation.

"But like all such credit, it is hard to bank or leverage in pursuit of other Canadian interests. For this reason, we will need to pay careful attention to how we manage our announced 2011 end to our military mission in Afghanistan."

The departmental briefing note goes on to stress reconstruction, development and political engagement as "crucial to maintaining the hard won confidence of the United States."

Last week, high-level government representatives from around the world met in London to discuss Afghanistan's future. Mr. Cannon was in attendance but, according to numerous media reports, Canada was largely ignored or pushed to the side.

In fact, recent criticism by US officials like Senate Armed Services committee chair Carl Levin on NATO allies' unwillingness to commit more troops appears to be taking on a life of its own.

"2010 is clearly the year in which we are either going to turn the corner and move in a fundamentally different direction and succeed or not ... so it is the time of maximum effort," the Globe and Mail quoted US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daadler as saying. "This is therefore not the time to start decreasing effort. It is to maintain, if not expand, the effort."

During the London conference, Mr. Cannon refused to say whether Canada would contribute to a $500-million fund that would entice Afghans away from the insurgency and offer them money, jobs and vocational training.

Instead, he re-announced $25 million for counter-narcotics efforts. The money had originally been made public about six months ago under proactive disclosure as a contribution to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for implementation of the Afghan National Drug Control Strategy.

Timing and message

The revelations in Mr. Cannon's briefing notes have prompted mixed reactions, with some saying the government is too fixated on US opinion when it comes to the war, while others say the government has done a poor job of managing the withdrawal.

While many Canadians believe the government is routinely sensitive to US government interests when planning foreign policy, it is not often that official government correspondence makes it evident.

A parliamentary research report on Canada-US relations in January 2009 suggested merely that Afghanistan "has serious implications for the Canada-US relationship" and that the country's involvement in Afghanistan "will have long-lasting consequences."

Carleton University North American relations expert David Dyment criticized the Foreign Affairs department for falling into a pattern he sees occurring too often across the whole of Canadian government.

"It is a blunder to think about our involvement in Afghanistan through the lens of our relationship with the US," Mr. Dyment said. "This Canadian reflex to so often take the US as a starting point for our international decisions is a mistake and a shame."

Mr. Dyment rejected the department's assertion that it is possible to "bank or leverage" credit in Washington in pursuit of other objectives.

"An idea that the Americans want something and by not giving it that they will actively set-out to punish us; that is not their intention," he said. "If it was, given the diffuse role of decision making in the US and the nature of power and decision making in Congress, it would be difficult to achieve."

Eugene Lang, former chief of staff to defence minister Bill Graham and author of The Unexpected War, also criticized the government's focus on American policy in the context of a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"The government of Canada, when thinking of what Canada should be doing in Afghanistan today or post-2011, should be overwhelmingly concerned with what the Afghans need... and much less concerned with what the United States wants us to do," he said.

Meanwhile, NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar thought the government's handling of the announced withdrawal over the past few months had been "clumsy."

"We had [Defence Minister Peter] MacKay suggesting we still would have military in theatre post-2011, then we had the prime minister suggesting that we wouldn't," he said.

"For that matter, Minister Cannon really wasn't saying much of anything, to be frank. I was hoping that he would have been a little more declarative as to what our role would be."

cmeyer@embassymag.ca