I doubt that any (many?) parliamentarians, including Stephen Harper, care much (if at all) about the success or failure of the Afghan mission. They all want to use the mission and the soldiers to secure their own domestic, petty, partisan political victories.
I suspect that IF Harper uses the Afghan mission for his own domestic, partisan purposes - to embarrass the Liberals an BQ by making them vote for an extension of the combat force (as I hope he does) - it will be easy enough for the bureaucrats (civil and military) to manage the mission as they see fit.
We (they, actually: the guys and gals in uniform, up to and including Rick Hillier) are props on the political stage.