Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview that allied forces will never defeat the Afghan insurgency.

Remember way back in the early days of the Obama administration when the president went to Canada on his first foreign trip and as soon as Afghanistan came up in the concluding news conference, the well-briefed new U.S. leader pre-empted a key question by saying he had not asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper for more Canadian troops?

Good thing.

Because, as it turns out, Prime Minister Harper thinks victory for the allies in Afghanistan is simply not going to happen. In a fascinating and surprisingly candid interview with CNN’s ever-thoughtful Fareed Zakaria on “GPS,” here’s what the leader of the United States’ closest military ally there said:

“In fact, my own judgment, Fareed, is, quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency.”

Coming just days after Obama ordered 17,000 additional U.S. combat troops into that forever-fighting land as a mere holding action, pending further study and possible additional deployments, that’s got to be a stunner to the new White House team.