You can use 2nd Avenue, but you might make slightly better time heading along Lexington.
It should take about three minutes, but, you know traffic in midtown Manhattan. Better budget six minutes.
If you add in the width of the sidewalks in front of the two buildings, the trip might be 1.5 kilometres.
It was a trip too far for Stephen Harper on Thursday.
We got the Waldorf Doctrine, not the United Nations speech.
To be fair, a number of other world leaders decided to give the UN General Assembly a pass in 2012, but most of them were separated from the podium by oceans, not blocks.
This year, it was the Waldorf Astoria, in 2009, it was an Oakville Tim Hortons instead of the General Assembly, a move then described in the Star as Harper choosing doughnuts over diplomacy.
As he accepted his award as World Statesman of the Year by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation Thursday evening, Harper laid out his Waldorf Doctrine, one that included a swipe at the institution he snubbed.
He said Canadians expect their governments to act with international partners for the “wider interests of humanity . . . that is, of course, not the same thing as trying to court every dictator with a vote at the United Nations . . . or just going along with every international consensus, no matter how self-evidently wrong-headed.’’
Harper spoke a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the General Assembly, sparking a symbolic walkout by the Canadian delegation, one that happens every year and was announced by press release hours in advance.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said there was no walkout, “we just never took our seats. Canada didn’t want to be associated in any way, shape or form with the ramblings of an anti-Semitic hate monger.’’
Iran then warned its citizens not to travel to Canada, home of a dangerous brand of “Iranaphobia.’’
Thursday night Harper said the world must not shrink from recognizing the evil that is Iran, and called on the international community to do more to further pressure and isolate the regime.
Harper, of course, has severed diplomatic ties with Tehran.
He cited Iran’s “appalling” record of human rights abuse, its assistance to the brutal Syrian regime, its support of terrorist entities and its “determined” pursuit of nuclear weapons.
It is this Iranian evil that compels Canada to speak out in support of Israel, Harper said, because those who would target Israel threaten all free and democratic societies.
“It is the one country of the global community whose very existence is threatened,’’ Harper said on the eve of Friday’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Our government does refuse to use international (forums) to single out Israel for criticism.’’
Harper said it is not Canada’s role to lecture others, but it is the responsibility of his government to make the choices that circumstances force upon it.
“We should never consider others evil merely because they disagree with us,’’ he said, “or because they compete with us.’’
But when evil dominates, one will find irreconcilable disagreements with Canada, he said.
The Waldorf Doctrine capped a week of foreign policy by symbolism for the Conservative government.
It started with complaints that the Canadian media had overblown a decision to share some diplomatic facilities with Britain, but the Conservatives had already feathered their own bed on this one.
You can’t order Canadian art work out of the foreign affairs building in favour of a portraits of the Queen, order her portrait to hang in our foreign missions, return the name Royal to the navy and air force and not expect to be accused of moving back in with your colonial master.
You can’t moderate a regime by cutting off ties and walking out on speeches.
And you can’t symbolically thumb your nose at the United Nations without looking churlish.
Seven times the General Assembly has met since Harper came to power. He has addressed it twice, most recently just before the country was embarrassed by losing a bid for Security Council seat.
This is hardly a way to win back that credibility, proving that sometimes a government that lives by the symbol, can get bruised by symbol.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper
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