I think one of the challenges, certainly historically, is that until quite recently Afghanistan was not an American preoccupation, and that affected the entire NATO mission.
Towards the end of the Bush era, Afghanistan, with the impending drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq, came to be a much greater area of focus and attention. And you may recall that it was President George Bush who made the decision to increase U.S. troop deployments in Afghanistan.
That being said, and I think it was said in spades by the Manley Commission, we still have a problem of not only herding cats in NATO but the absence of any kind of clear political strategy coming out of Washington, which, after all, is the leader of the pack.
Special Representative Holbrook has been tasked with coming up with a political strategy. I think it's fair to say that it's also part of what President Obama would like to have as an exit strategy from Afghanistan. He has made it very clear that he doesn't want to be there for the long haul, and he has recognized that the notion that we can export full-blown democracy to Afghanistan is not realistic given the social, economic, and political circumstances, not just in Afghanistan but in the region as a whole.
The point of my remarks was that there is no political strategy in place right now. Holbrook's challenge is to develop one. I think we have to be there. I think it may be difficult to do that. Mr. Holbrook is not one known to carry the torch with others, if you look at the history of his previous intermediary interventions in Bosnia and elsewhere.
But that being said, nature abhors a vacuum. And I think we could be creative and bring together, under Canadian auspices, some of the best minds, who really understand the politics of the region and the politics of Afghanistan, and that includes people like Brahimi, who was the mediator of the Bonn process that brought the loya jirga and the current government to Afghanistan, and others like Vendrell, who again knows the region well and who has been very critical of the absence of any clear diplomatic and political strategy. And I think there are some Canadians who could also contribute to that. Now is the time to do it.
I don't think we need to appoint another special envoy. The Americans have one, the British have said they're appointing one. Special envoys are sprouting up like fortune cookies in different parts of the globe. But I think there's a real window of opportunity there.