Afstan: PM pressures Euros--so?

Prime Minister Harper is now putting public pressure on the Euros:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says only a stepped-up military presence in Afghanistan can prevent the troubled country from again becoming a haven for terrorists.

Canada went to Afghanistan because it was a failed state responsible for training the terrorists that killed two dozen Canadians in the World Trade Centre attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Harper said.

Afghanistan represented a security threat to the world then, he said at the end of a Latin American trip, and it will again if NATO countries don't step up their efforts to resist the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency.

[...]

Harper, who was heading to Barbados, recently maintained that he would not extend Canada's military mission in Afghanistan beyond its scheduled end in February 2009 without a "consensus" in Parliament. He repeated that Wednesday.

He has also said NATO's failure to persuade other countries in the alliance to shoulder some of the burden in Afghanistan would be a factor in Canada's participation in the combat mission there beyond 2009...

All well and good Mr Harper. But if Afghanistan really is such a security threat what is the justification for our cutting and running--other than politics and pique? As for the consequences if al Qaeda is able to reestablish itself in Afstan when they're already a menace in Pakistan...