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And why are you so insistent that it would forever be out of the civvies' learning ability? Were you born with some special insight into AAR, or was it taught to you? Why would it be so impossible for civvy pilots to do the AAR course, hypothetically? Some might not be up to it, granted, but to make the statement that none of them would be capable is ridiculous.
Think of it this way. An AT/AAR pilot needs to be competent in aircraft operation, AT role operation and AAR role operation.
There's no doubt that any airline pilot could meet the first 2, but the 3rd is an 'unknown'. The course needed would perhaps be longer than converting an existing AAR pilot to a new AAR aeroplane and there would be some risk that the airline pilot might be unsuccessful as you say. But at the end of the day it boils down to one thing alone - cost. If it costs more to train an airline pilot to become a competent AAR pilot than it does to convert an RAF AAR pilot to the new aeroplane, the military being as it is a 'price-sensitive' customer is going to take the latter option.
The 'fATPL course' includes rather more than the RAF ME course does. But you have to bear in mind that RAF candidates are given pre-entry screening, whereas in theory anyone with enough money can buy their own 'fATPL' and 737/320 TR. However, the new MPL course does require end-user airline involvement - so it's in the financial interest of the airline to pre-select its 'MPL' candidates.
You'd be surprised at the failure rates on ATPL or type rating courses. Command courses have even higher rates (40% of experienced FOs, with typically 4000 hrs of company operations, having been screened for initial employment, trained in house and then screened very carefully for command training, fail the command course in RYR), so don't be fooled into thinking that you can buy a UK CPL or ATPL. US licences maybe, but not European and certainly not British issued. Don't forget that a large proportion of the CAA is staffed by ex-navigators -they're not going to make it easy for pilots now, are they?
I'm not trying to suggest that all the civvies be trained to conduct AAR, but if AirTanker are as selective in their recruitment as I believe they will be, then their crews should be perfectly capable of completing the AAR course. I would expect AT to be recruiting only high quality, experienced and adept applicants, not just any old crew who hold a licence. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if their recruitment was more thorough than the Service's.
All that aside, surely it would not be unreasonable for those civvy pilots that demonstrated a high level of ability within the AT fleet to subsequently be integrated into the military group of pilots, completing the AAR training a year or so after starting on the line on the noddy stuff, sort of a cross-pollination, if you will.