To answer the last part of your question first, I think in the long run, yes, it will. I think Afghanistan is a defining moment for NATO. There's a lot of discussion amongst practitioners, scholars, etc., about what NATO's future is. I think for the first 10 years or so after the end of the Cold War, no one was sure what NATO was going to do, if it had any role at all to play.
I think that in the long run, if NATO succeeds in Afghanistan, it ought to be able to—and it ought to—reach out to democracies around the world, to Australia, to India, to countries that are democratic and believe that sometimes a democracy will need armed security for its protection, but also to countries that are prepared to transform NATO into a social, economic, and political organization. That can all happen, but it won't happen if NATO fails in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the first out-of-theatre mission for NATO, and if it does not work, as I said, we're looking at disaster.
What can we do? Aside from trying to twist arms and talk, which I assume our foreign minister, defence minister, and Prime Minister are doing, we are saying there is a deadline to our heavy participation in this fighting, and it is 2009. That's it. After that we're moving to a quieter area or withdrawing from Afghanistan because we need to build our forces elsewhere. That will hold their feet to the fire. There is nothing that can hold a person's feet to the fire other than having a fire and having somebody holding their feet to it. It has to be done.