OTTAWA - Canada is throwing away an opportunity to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai fracture the Taliban by not actively supporting his repeated peace overtures to moderate insurgents, an international think-tank charged Monday.
The Senlis Council, a European-based agency that's conducted extensive research in war-torn southern Afghanistan, says the appeal to less-dogmatic Taliban has a good chance of succeeding if NATO countries throw their full support behind it.
Norine MacDonald, a Vancouver lawyer and council president, says separating hard-core Islamic fundamentalists and al Qaeda supporters from moderates would weaken the insurgency and reduce its offensive capacity.
It's time for Canada to take the diplomatic lead and step out from the shadow of U.S. foreign policy, she said.
"We believe there are defining moments in every nation's history when there's an opportunity to demonstrate who we are as a nation and how we conduct ourselves in Afghanistan at this critical moment is one of those times," MacDonald said at the beginning of a day-long conference meant to explore policies that could lead to peace.
This so called fast track for peace and stability should also include keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan past the February 2009 deadline and opposition to a U.S. demand that opium poppies be eradicated with aerial spraying.
The strategy of driving wedges between various insurgent factions is a cornerstone of U.S. policy in Iraq, where it has convinced Sunni tribesmen to fight terrorists.
In Afghanistan, NATO has been using economic development projects to pry committed Taliban fighters -- who are often foreign jihadists -- away from poor, unemployed farmers who are often coerced or enticed to take up arms. The strategy has met with limited sucess.
MacDonald says actively supporting Karzai's peace bid by rallying other NATO countries would also help the Conservatives sell the mission among Canadians who've complained there is too much emphasis on fighting at the expense of development, reconstruction and humanitarian aid.
The debate over the war this fall in Ottawa needs to be about more than whether Canada stays or withdraws from Afghanistan at the appointed end of the mission, she said.
"I believe Canadians instinctively understand why we are in Afghanistan, but they don't understand what the government's plan is for success for our military and I think they're angry the political system us turning them against each other."
MacDonald said she believes the opposition has "shown some willingness to fall in line behind a proper, well thought out plan."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last summer he wouldn't extend the combat mission in Kandahar, unless there was consensus in Parliament, but recently qualified that position by stating he wouldn't put the issue before the House of Commons until he had the winning conditions.
A request for comment from Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, who attended a closed-door meeting at the United Nations Sunday on the future of Afghanistan, was turned down.
But in talking points released by his office, Bernier dismissed the criticism saying the Senlis Council "with its focus on opium legalization and negotiating with the Taliban, seeks to distract from the real successes are being realized in Afghanistan."
Bernier has in the past rejected the idea of Ottawa participating directly in peace talks with the Taliban, saying "Canada does not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason."
The talking points say negotiations remain the responsibility of the Afghan government and that Canada supports the reconciliation program already underway in Afghanistan. That program encourages Taliban to lay down their arms -- sometimes in exchange for cash -- and rejoin society without fear of prosecution.
Bloc Quebecois defence critic Claude Bachand, who attended the Senlis conference, says it's already too late to salvage the current Canadian mission politically.
"The support for this mission has been dropping since it started," he said.
Last winter, Bachand and the rest of the Commons defence committee met with NATO's former commander in Afghanistan, British Lt.-Gen. David Richards, who warned them that peace could not be achieved through military means alone.
"We're losing the war because there is no diplomacy," said Bachand.
