Prime Minister Mark Carney’s much criticized ambiguity about the role of international law regarding U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran is more than an excusable stumble by an inexperienced politician operating in a challenging environment.
Carney is building a foreign policy “doctrine” that increasingly warrants a closer look.
Last October, Carney lavished praise on U.S. President Donald Trump for supposedly “disabling Iran as a force of terror” with U.S. strikes months earlier. While the prime minister has softened — but not withdrawn — his support for the current military campaign that began in spite of progress on peace talks, he has not explained why he has long disagreed with intelligence assessments that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Nor has Carney or his ministers refused to rule out some form of participation in the conflict that is rapidly extending to other Persian Gulf states.
An opportunity to provide clarity on such issues was rebuffed when Carney skipped an emergency debate in Parliament on the growing crisis. Meanwhile, the war continues to unleash enormous human suffering and chaos.
You want to knock out the main one the article focuses on?
Well how about the fact that that it’s literally entirely about a single specific weasle worded statement about Iran that was initiated that means nothing and was obviously done to not have Trump turn on us again?
Literally everything Lloyd Axworthy is railing against is the naiive idealism that is not reflective of the real world.
You know what happened with the Iraq war? Crétien publicly announced in parliament that we wouldn’t be joining without first telling the US privately and it created a diplomatic rift and caused trade issues with them.
You know what Crétien’s statement did for Iraqis? Nothing.
You know what actually mattered for them? Keeping Canadian troops and resources out of the war.
Now let’s compare it to Carney’s situation. He’s dealing with an even more vitriolic and preexisting trade war, with a president and cabinet who have literally repeatedly talkedd about trying to take us over, either explicitly or as a vassal state, and his choice is to also not actually support the war with resources, and instead issue a weasle worded statement that kind of sounds like it’s supporting the US while also calling them out for violating international order.
And because of that the sky is falling?? Like Jesus fucking Christ this is what I was fucking talking about when I said that this is exactly the naiive dumbassery that just says you should always call out evil in every situation no matter what because that will always lead to good outcomes. The man literally can’t issue a meaningless diplomatic statement unless it’s worded exactly as you want it, yet you think you’re giving him space to cook?
You’re just confirming you don’t understand the doctrine.
As a consequence, you don’t understand the significance of the initial statement or subsequent ones and how they create incoherence in Canada’s foreign policy.
Additionally, you also don’t seem to be aware that on the day Chretien publicly spoke out against the Iraq war the government provided private assurance to the US of support, did provide indirect support with naval and air assets, and had a Canadian general serve in a command position in Iraq, or that Chretien had an acknowledged political strategy of cultivating an appearance of independence from the US to maintain public support that would enable him to be more useful to the US.
Who’s naïve?
Criticize the actual specific point I made, or shut the fuck up.
You’re really holding yourself to a high standard, huh?
Show you actually understand the doctrine. You still haven’t.
I mean, you’ve shown you also don’t understand Canada’s foreign policy history, but that’s a bit tangential, even if it’s par for the course so far with you.
Do better.