Is Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoiling for a new fight in the Middle East? Is he preparing the ground to send CF-18 fighter-bombers against Iran’s provocative nuclear facilities or Syria’s brutal military? Canadians might well wonder.
There’s been a spasm of sabre-rattling in Ottawa recently, in the wake of a chilling United Nations report on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and Syria’s ugly crackdown on dissidents.
Two weeks ago Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared that “Canada will continue to work with its like-minded allies to take the necessary action for Iran to abandon its nuclear program …. It is not a question of if, but to what extent, we will act.” While opaque, that had an ominous ring, coming as it did amid speculation about a possible pre-emptive Israeli/American strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Then on Sunday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay pointedly refused to rule out attacking Syria if the UN Security Council were to authorize it.
The Conservatives should cool their jets. We have just joined our American and British allies in cranking up political and economic sanctions on both regimes, to get them to curb their worst tendencies. The sanctions need time to bite. And there’s no sign of a UN consensus in favour of tougher sanctions, much less war.
If the Security Council does at some point deem Iran to be a threat to world peace or Syria to be slaughtering civilians on a mass scale, Canada would be obliged to consider military action in the context of a collective international effort. In 1999 our CF-18s flew 684 combat sorties against Yugoslav forces during the Kosovo conflict, roughly 10 per cent of the allied effort. More recently, in Libya, we pulled roughly the same weight, flying 942 of the allies’ 9,600 strike missions.
But in both cases Canada acted prudently, under proper UN warrants as part of a broad international coalition to thwart genocide and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and wholesale civilian slaughter in Libya. Absent similar UN approval, an unprovoked attack on Iran or Syria with a handful of allies would be unlawful and unwise. Canada rightly refused to join the ill-fated U.S. invasion of Iraq for those very reasons. That should remain our guiding principle.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
There’s been a spasm of sabre-rattling in Ottawa recently, in the wake of a chilling United Nations report on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and Syria’s ugly crackdown on dissidents.
Two weeks ago Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared that “Canada will continue to work with its like-minded allies to take the necessary action for Iran to abandon its nuclear program …. It is not a question of if, but to what extent, we will act.” While opaque, that had an ominous ring, coming as it did amid speculation about a possible pre-emptive Israeli/American strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Then on Sunday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay pointedly refused to rule out attacking Syria if the UN Security Council were to authorize it.
The Conservatives should cool their jets. We have just joined our American and British allies in cranking up political and economic sanctions on both regimes, to get them to curb their worst tendencies. The sanctions need time to bite. And there’s no sign of a UN consensus in favour of tougher sanctions, much less war.
If the Security Council does at some point deem Iran to be a threat to world peace or Syria to be slaughtering civilians on a mass scale, Canada would be obliged to consider military action in the context of a collective international effort. In 1999 our CF-18s flew 684 combat sorties against Yugoslav forces during the Kosovo conflict, roughly 10 per cent of the allied effort. More recently, in Libya, we pulled roughly the same weight, flying 942 of the allies’ 9,600 strike missions.
But in both cases Canada acted prudently, under proper UN warrants as part of a broad international coalition to thwart genocide and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and wholesale civilian slaughter in Libya. Absent similar UN approval, an unprovoked attack on Iran or Syria with a handful of allies would be unlawful and unwise. Canada rightly refused to join the ill-fated U.S. invasion of Iraq for those very reasons. That should remain our guiding principle.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
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