President Obama has officially set an exit date from Iraq, on which the vast majority of U.S Army personnel will be extracted from the war-torn nation. Come September 2010 the long running, fruitless, costly war in Iraq will finally draw to a close – giving generations to come ample material to speculate and judge.

This is fantastic news for those who opposed the unjust invasion of Iraq since it began in 2003. There is still much to be done, however, when it comes to excising the coalition forces from the Middle East.

Canada has been mired in Afghanistan for years and though most of our accomplishments there have been well intentioned, the nation has been in steady decline since it was first invaded by the coalition of Western nations. Opium trade makes up the chief export of Afghanistan, while endless insurgency strikes on the part of the former Taliban government has both slowed democratic progress and ground down the morale and will of coalition forces. Even our own prime minister now deems the fight in Afghanistan impossible to win.

Why, then, do the states of the coalition insist on staying in Afghanistan? Canada’s scheduled withdrawal from the country is May 2011, possibly sooner after Harper’s defeatist statements. Honestly, if the leader of our own government has described a war that is costing lives and resources on both sides as something we cannot win, I think that’s a pretty good indication we should leave before 2011. In all fairness, Harper made these comments with a follow-up statement explaining that the Canadian forces, though incapable of winning the war against the Taliban insurgency, must finish training the Afghans so that they may run things when the coalition leaves.

But how feasible is this plan? The Canadian military – along with the militaries of all other coalition-bound countries – are forces of modern military prowess and technology. Even with UN funding the Afghan people could never dream of devoting the resources necessary to allow them use of the military assets currently at their disposal through the coalition forces. If our modern military along with the aid of the most powerful military the world has ever known cannot suppress this insurgency and bring peace to a war-torn nation, how do we ever expect Afghanistan to ever dig itself out of the hole we put it in?

We have entered a new era. President Obama is using his immense political capital in a laudable attempt to re-establish the U.S.A.’s position as leader and benevolent overseer of the free world. The pullout from Iraq and the closing of Guantanamo Bay are his two first major steps in doing so. In this spirit of a return to civility, it may be time for Harper to re-assess his scheduled pullout from Afghanistan to an earlier date. While Obama tries to reclaim the U.S.A.’s legitimacy as a leader among nations, perhaps Canada’s leaders should be working on reclaiming Canada’s title as a peacekeeper and diplomat.

Published in Volume 63, Number 23 of The Uniter (March 12, 2009)