Harper meets with Karzai, NATO boss on eve of alliance talks

As CBC.ca reports:

There was still no official indication whether Canada will receive a commitment this week on the additional troops and equipment it is requesting in order to extend its Afghan mission past 2009.

"We've done everything humanly possible to set up those conditions that we would get results, but keep in mind that we have until February '09 to fulfil those commitments," MacKay said Tuesday.

It looks as though our government is not going into this meeting with very high expectations regarding our role in Afghanistan. They are not expecting a new deal this week, although the US is promising more troops in the country. The problem here is, where are these troops headed. Like France's promise to send out more troops, these are supposedly headed to the east of Afghanistan, in a region already dominated by American troops. However, others argue this would allow American troops to head on to the contentious area of southern Afghanistan, the Taliban stronghold. I hesitate to say whether this will actually happen, but I supposed if the US wants to ensure Canada maintains its assistance, they will have to give in to some of our requests at some point. The clock is ticking tho...