 As part of this policy, his government continued and expanded Canada's participation in the US-led anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, which began following al Qaida's mass attacks on September 11, 2001, and in the Iraq conflict that began under President George W. Bush in March 2003.Relations with the United States are always a central issue in Canada, and the period prior to Harper's premiership was widely criticized for "the lamentably awkward and embarrassingly public handling of the continental relationship.