As US President Obama tries to get the Karzai regime in Afghanistan to "reconcile" with the Taliban in preparation for an American withdrawal, other countries are not obliged to go along with it. From Terry Glavin:

If all President Obama sees in Afghanistan is a place to put a residual NATO military force to more confidently reassure American voters that he’s keeping them safe from the jihadist mayhem of outfits like al Qaeda, that’s his business, but again, sorry, Mr. President. That’s not what Canadian taxpayers are for.

 

Canada never intended that the entire 50-nation International Security Assistance Force project in Afghanistan be merely the means by which the White House forces Afghans to “reconcile” with the Taliban. The exit strategy the White House expects its NATO allies to subsidize is not a strategy, unless that’s what you call a ruse by which the United States puts off its overdue reckoning with the extortionists and gangsters who run Pakistan and who have been the cause of Afghanistan’s agonies all along.