My old friends at CTV had a great 'get' this evening: A one-on-one interview of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton by CTV's Tom Clark. Clinton is in Ottawa for a meeting of G8 foreign ministers. The Prime Minister's Office has just announced that Clinton and Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have their own one-on-one meeting Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m.
It appears that Sec'y Clinton may ask Harper to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan after 2011, the date that, by a motion of Parliament, Canada has indicated it will withdraw its troops. Here's the interview between Clark and Clinton:
Tom Clark, CTV: Can I move on to Afghanistan? It occurs to me that our two countries haven't been this close in this sort of alliance really since World War II. Strictly and purely from an American perspective, how important is it that that connection between the two countries continue, and perhaps continue beyond our pullout date of 2011?
Hillary Rodham Clinton: Well, we're very grateful for the Canadian Forces, the Canadian government and most of all the Canadian people with the support and solidarity that they have shown with us in this mission in Afghanistan. We would obviously like to see  some form of support continue because the Canadian forces have a great reputation. They work really well with our American troops and the other members of our coalition. There's a lot of commonality. … I think our militaries have become even closer because of this deployment. Obviously it's up for Canada to decide the way forward. but we certainly hope there will be some continuing connection and visible support because we have all learned so much. And we believe, in the United States, with the new strategy, that President Obama has set forth, we're making progress. … We have made a lot of progress and we would very much look forward to having Canada involved in any way that thank you think appropriate.Clark: Aand by saying that, just to clarify, are you talking about maybe a non-combat and the role but a Canadian military role continuing on past 2011?
Clinton: There are all kinds of things that are possible. The military could switch more into a training role instead of a combat role, a logistics support role instead of the front-line combat. Certainly the non-military functions of working to encourage development, better governance, the rule of law – all the pieces of the strategy that have to be married with the military. And Canada has a particular commitment to and experience with that kind of development work that would be very useful.
So the United States would “like to see some form of support continue because the Canadian Forces have a great reputation.”
Harper, too, thinks the CF has a great reputation but, in an interview I and my colleague John Ivison had with Harper in January, he seemed pretty clear that, in his meeting with Clinton tomorrow, he's going to have to say no (I have marked in bold the key passage here:
Ivison: Afghanistan — can you elaborate on what a military pullout in 2011 actually means? Are we still going to have a Provincial Reconstruction Team? How is CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) going to operate? Do we have any of those answers yet?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper: We have been working on those answers but the bottom line is that the military mission will end in 2011. There will be a phased withdrawal, beginning in the middle of the year. We hope to have that concluded by the end of that year. As you know the Obama administration, not coincidentally, is talking about beginning its withdrawal in 2011, at the same time we are. We will continue to maintain humanitarian and development missions, as well as important diplomatic activity in Afghanistan. But we will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy. We will not be undertaking any kind activity that requires a significant military force protection, so it will become a strictly civilian mission. It will be a significantly smaller mission than it is today.
Ivison: Do you still believe in a state-building strategy in Afghanistan? Some people think we should have a much less ambitious game-plan because foreigners can't give the gift of a state to Afghans.
Harper: I think the reality is that all actors over the past few years have been downgrading their expectations of what can be achieved in Afghanistan. But it is still important that we have a viable, functioning state in Afghanistan that has some acceptable democratic and rule of law norms. If we don't, we run the serious risk of returning in Afghanistan to what we had before. No matter what differences people have on the mission, everybody agrees that the mission has the purpose to ensure that Afghanistan does not return to being a failed state that is an incubator of terrorism.