OTTAWA — There's no doubt one of the key aims of Stephen Harper's cabinet shuffle was to strengthen the ministerial team in charge of the Afghanistan military mission.

What's not so clear is whether his decision to install Peter MacKay at defence and Maxine Bernier at foreign affairs signals a determination to stay the course or a subtle shift in agenda with an eye to the next election.

The uncertainty stems in large part from Harper's own declaration -- delivered in June, just as Parliament was recessing for the summer -- that he wouldn't keep Canadian combat troops in Afghanistan past February 2009 unless there's "some degree of consensus'' that it's the right thing to do.,

Harper went on to make it clear he personally believes it's still the right thing. But his words were taken by many as an invitation to opposition parties to help revamp the mission in a way that would be more to their liking.

There have been no meetings since then with the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois or NDP in search of what the prime minister hopefully termed a "meeting of minds.'' Nor does it sound as if anybody is rushing to open negotiations in the wake of this week's shuffle.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion dismissed MacKay as a man who's already discredited on Afghan policy by his 18 months in the foreign affairs portfolio and denounced Bernier as "very right wing and close to the U.S. Republican approach.''

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe offered much the same assessment and said he's "not very optimistic'' about a change of course. NDP Leader Jack Layton simply reiterated his long-standing call to get the troops home as soon as possible.

Norman Spector, a former diplomat and chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, said the political dynamic of the current minority Parliament doesn't favour a statesmanlike, non-partisan approach. He believes, however, that Harper has no choice but to strike a deal with at least one opposition party if he wants to preserve some semblance of his Afghan policy.

The challenge is to "reconfigure'' the mission in a way that both sides can live with, said Spector. The NDP likely could never be convinced to drop its outright opposition to the troop deployment, but the Liberals and Bloc could be more amenable.

Both those parties have acknowledged there's no alternative to continuing the mission until the end of the current term in 2009. They maintain that, if Canadian troops stay longer than that, they should pull back from combat role and spend more time on reconstruction, economic development projects and training of local forces.

If there's a deal to be struck, said Spector, "it's going to require tough negotiations. In the best of all possible worlds the other parties would respond to an olive branch from the government, but who knows?''

Alex Morrison, head of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies, thinks the best bet for a deal is with the Liberals. Whether the Bloc signs on could depend on whether Bernier is successful in his assigned task of selling the mission to a Quebec public that has so far been skeptical.

"If Bernier does his job and raises the stock of the Conservative party in Quebec, then the Bloc might just have to hold their noses,'' said Morrison.

He also believes that, even if Harper can't cut a deal, he may decide to make continuation of the mission a confidence matter and dare the opposition to bring him down and force an election.

"When he says we don't cut and run, he means it. I think he will go quite far to keep us in Afghanistan.''

Rob Huebert, a University of Calgary expert on defence policy, isn't so sure Harper would push the opposition to the wall. But he does think Harper is playing a political game with Dion and the Liberals as his chief targets.

The prime minister wins if Dion, whose party first sent troops to Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, relents in his current opposition and strikes a deal to keep them there.

If there's no deal, Harper's exit strategy is then to "wash his hands of the mission and blame the opposition,'' said Huebert.

That could be a clever move in terms of short-term domestic politics, getting the issue off the table in time for the next election. But there could also be a longer-term strategic downside.

"Canada loses,'' said Huebert. "Basically the Taliban has a victory.''