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It's not just Canadians scanning the exits looking for an out from Afghanistan.
In other countries where troops are fighting and dying - notably the Netherlands - the public is embroiled in divisive national debate that echoes Canada's over whether to withdraw from the bloody counterinsurgency against a resurgent Taliban.
Getting out or perhaps even better - swapping the bloody killing fields of southern Afghanistan for a quieter patch in the north where a nation can still proudly claim it is standing shoulder to shoulder with its allies - is fast becoming a recurring theme.
If the Dutch, whose soldiers are battling to hold Uruzgan province, adjacent to Kandahar where Canada's battle group is deployed, leave when their current commitment ends next August, they could open the floodgates to a bigger exodus.
Australia, whose troops are deployed alongside the Dutch, has warned it will pull out if the Dutch go. The Harper government says it won't extend Canada's commitment without the consensus of all political parties.
The entire NATO effort in Afghanistan - once billed as proof that the Atlantic Alliance is relevant in the 21st century and not just a Cold War relic - will seem a chimera if both Canada and the Netherlands bail out at the end of their current commitments.
"It will be a mark of shame on all of us if an alliance built on the foundation of democratic values were to falter at the very moment that it tries to lay that foundation for democracy elsewhere - especially in a mission that is crucial to our own security," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said this week.
The urgency of begging those bearing the burden to stay and warning of even greater bloodshed if they leave - as Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai did this week - is matched by increasingly shrill and mostly ignored pleas from top alliance generals for member governments to match their rhetoric with boots on the ground.
A senior officer at NATO headquarters, closely familiar with the failed efforts to get major alliance nations - notably Germany, Spain, Italy and France - to contribute more, voiced what is now a widespread frustration. "The political declarations are robust. But when you count up the number of boots and helicopters, there's a glaring absence," he said, speaking on condition that he not be identified by name or nationality.
Getting the Germans, Spanish, Italians and French to lift the caveats that preclude their troops being usefully deployed to where the fighting is remains the most vexing of NATO's problems.
"Many allies are reluctant to provide the necessary resources and put their men and women in the line of fire," Mr. Gates said.
Britain and the United States have significantly increased the number of soldiers they have sent to the war-torn south as it became evident that a raging insurgency was under way. Washington has also increased the duration of its combat tours to 15 months, compared with deployments of six months for Canadian soldiers. Britain has sent an extra 2,000 troops to Helmand province, adjacent to Kandahar. Yesterday, Poland extended its commitment for a year to the fall of 2008.
Meanwhile, public support for waging war in Afghanistan is weakening across much of Western Europe and in Canada.
Solid majorities in other major European countries believe the war in Afghanistan has been "a failure," making it all but impossible for their governments to shift troops into combat zones to relieve the Canadians or the Dutch. More than 60 per cent of German, Italian, British and French respondents - as well as about half of Canadians polled by Angus Reid last month - believe the military effort in Afghanistan has been a failure so far.
"We are going to lose some" European contingents, the senior NATO officer predicted glumly.
Italy, with 2,500 soldiers in the northwestern corner of Afghanistan, far from the fighting but in a critical zone adjacent to Iran and headquartered in the city of Herat, is also wavering.
If the Dutch quit, it will leave an even bigger hole than if the Canadians pull out. Like Canada, the Netherlands has deployed a combat-capable battle group but it has also sent warplanes and helicopters to southern Afghanistan.
Replacing ground troops would be difficult if the Canadians and the Dutch pull out; replacing the Dutch Chinook helicopters and F-16 fighter-bombers would be even harder, the senior NATO officer said.
In Holland, as in Canada, major political parties are positioning themselves as mainstream public opinion shifts on the Afghanistan mission.
"People are feeling deceived by the government," said Marico Peters, defence spokesman for the opposition GreenLeft party in Holland.
"What they initially thought of as a reconstruction mission is in fact a fighting mission," he told Dutch radio.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who is Dutch, doubts his countrymen will pull out. "I honestly cannot imagine that the Netherlands would pull out single-handedly," he said yesterday.
But a frantic effort is under way to persuade other medium-sized NATO nations - perhaps Norway - to either take the lead in Uruzgan or send sufficient troops to relieve the pressure on the Dutch.
What seems far less likely is convincing Germany, Italy or Spain that it's their turn to have their soldiers in the front lines in the south. For instance, while top German officials have been urging Canada to remain in Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out any fighting role for German soldiers.
Even German Tornado aircraft are limited solely to reconnaissance and are not allowed to drop bombs.
"Not all the allies, and some major allies included, want to go to the places where the fighting is - although they also suffer from improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks," Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said.
International effort
The coalition of nations supporting the war in Afghanistan is broad, with 48,000 troops from 37 countries taking part. But it's not deep, because only the United States, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia are engaged in heavy fighting.
| Country | Troops |
| U.S. | 23,000 |
| Britain | 7,500 |
| Germany | 3,000 |
| Canada | 2,500 |
| Italy | 2,500 |
| Netherlands | 1,300 |
| Turkey | 1,200 |
| Poland | 1,050 |
| France | 800 |
| Australia | 700 |
| Spain | 650 |
| Norway | 500 |
| Romania | 500 |
| Bulgaria | 400 |
| Denmark | 400 |
| Belgium | 295 |
| Sweden | 260 |
| Czech Republic | 220 |
| Hungary | 180 |
| Croatia | 175 |
| New Zealand | 150 |
| Portugal | 150 |
| Greece | 145 |
| Lithuania | 130 |
| Macedonia | 120 |
| Estonia | 110 |
| Finland | 70 |
| Slovakia | 60 |
| Slovenia | 50 |
| Latvia | 35 |
| Albania | 30 |
| Azerbaijan | 20 |
| Luxembourg | 10 |
| Iceland | 9 |
| Ireland | 5 |
| Switzerland | 2 |
| Austria | 2 |
SOURCE: ISAF
