U.S. request for troops in Afghanistan requires a strategic Canadian response

With the passage of his controversial health care bill, President Barack Obama has just achieved the most significant victory in his presidency. He showed he is not just an orator and populist, but he can play the inside game of political deal-making. He has now gained a reputation as someone who can outsmart or stare down his opponents. His prestige, which had been faltering inside and outside the Washington beltway, has changed overnight. He has earned respect.

So what does a politically stronger Obama mean for Canada?

There remain plenty of issues critical to Canadian interests that barely generate a minute of attention from anyone within Obama's inner circle.

What will happen to our oil sands industry, our largest source export earnings, if American greenhouse gas cap and trade legislation and low carbon fuel standards come back to the Congressional agenda? How do we get Americans to ease off on border restrictions? Obama speaks the language of free trade but has done little to challenge the protectionist sentiment of his fellow Democrats in Congress.

To resolve these and other trade-related disagreements, we need to earn goodwill within the White House; something we can do by being helpful to the President in areas where it is both in our own interest and in the interest of the United States to have us involved. Such an area is Afghanistan.

After fighting for five years and losing 141 soldiers, clearly it's not in Canada's interest to just walk away from Afghanistan. Canada and the United States share the same approach in terms of counter-insurgency and nation building. It would be immoral for us to abandon the Afghans now.

The Obama administration is carefully signaling to Canada that it does not want all Canadian forces to leave Afghanistan in 2011. The American demand is very reasonable and accommodating to Canadian concerns. We will be asked to provide 600 trainers for the Afghan army in the Kabul area. Our 2,500 soldiers in Kandahar need a break from combat operations. The Americans understand and accept that.

But Obama cannot afford to have key NATO allies simply go home (as the Dutch are scheduled to do) while Americans are increasing their effort. We share the American goal of making Afghanistan self-sufficient in terms of having a secure and stable government. Training Afghan soldiers will be eminently doable for us and of significant lower risk to our soldiers.

When an American government involved in a good cause abroad asks for Canadian help, we have always come on board. We did so with peacekeeping in the Middle East, Cyprus, and in the former Yugoslavia.

A positive response to American requests to remain involved in Afghanistan could go a long way to building that much-needed good will within the White House, which in turn could help resolve other, troublesome trade and cross-border issues.

This is worth an election if it must come to that, and the Canadian people will see the reasonable American demand and the logic of a responsible Canadian answer.