Back To Bootlicking

 

Last year, I wrote a number of posts critical of Prime Minister Carney. His efforts at appeasing Donald Trump took several forms, none of which were consistent with the "elbows up" rhetoric that helped propel him and his party to victory in the last election. Over time, however, I developed a more than grudging respect for him , especially after he started making a concerted effort to broaden our trade relations so as to reduce reliance on the American mutated giant now threatening the world. Carney's peerless Davos speech solidified my respect.

Now, however, all of his words seem like empty rhetoric. The reason, of course, is the Prime Minister's  feckless endorsement of the American and Israeli war on Iran, a war that could go on for quite some time, a war without any clear objectives other than regime change, a war that will cost countless lives. 

For today's post, I am excerpting the commentary of three people: Sid Ryan, Lloyd Axworthy, and Justin Ling, If you are an unadulterated Carney fan, you might want to skip the rest of this post.

Sid Ryan, in a Facebbook post, writes:

Canada: The Loyal Poodle To American Foreign Policy

Canada has once again proven itself the loyal poodle to American foreign policy, tail-wagging in obedience as the US and Israel launch an unprovoked assault on Iran's sovereignty. Prime Minister Mark Carney's swift endorsement of this illegal attack—echoing Trump's claims of obliterating Iran's nuclear program only to now insist it's an imminent threat—exposes his much-lauded Davos speech as hollow rhetoric. There, he boldly decried the "might is right" order and the erosion of rules-based international norms under great powers. Yet here he is, turning a blind eye to blatant violations, just as Canada did throughout the Gaza genocide.

The hypocrisy runs deep: Israel, with its undeclared nuclear arsenal built on stolen secrets and shielded from IAEA scrutiny, lectures Iran while aggressors rewrite international law. Iran, whatever its regime's flaws, holds the legal right to self-defense under the UN Charter. Canada's acquiescence buries that principle, leaving international law on life support amid endless selective outrage.

Lloyd Axworthy has this to say about Carney's craven caving:

We invoke international law and the “rules based international order” when adversaries engage in unlawful actions, but abandon those same rules entirely when it’s the Americans — whose current government 60 per cent of Canadians now see as a threat — doing the bombing. For a country that depends on law more than force for its own security, that is not realism; it is recklessness.

Ottawa’s statement on the attack is telling for what it says, and what it refuses to say.

The Canadian government condemns Iran as a destabilizing actor, insists Tehran must “never be allowed” to obtain nuclear weapons, and declares that Canada “supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The statement also reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defence. Yet it never once invokes the language that any legally grounded justification would require: self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, or authorization by the UN Security Council.

The term self-defence has a very narrow definition under Article 51:

Under the UN Charter, cross-border uses of force are prohibited except in two narrow cases: collective decisions of the Security Council, or self defence in response to an actual or truly imminent armed attack. Operation Epic Fury, as the U.S. has dubbed it, fits neither. There is no Security Council mandate, and Ottawa has not tried to argue that Washington and Jerusalem are responding to an attack that is “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means.” Instead, it supports bombing to “prevent” Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon — the classic logic of preventive war.

Axworthy goes on to point out the hypocrisy of Canada's position, in that it has always used the language of condemnation when it comes to Russia's war on Ukraine. An American war of aggression against Iran, however, uses entirely different language and tone: 

No talk of aggression, no warning about Charter erosion, no insistence on emergency debate in New York. The double standard is obvious: when Russia uses force without lawful grounds, it is condemned as an outlaw; when the U.S. does something legally analogous, we kowtow in an effort to curry favour.

Justin Ling offers his view on this debacle:

... the warmongers have found a fan in Prime Minister Mark Carney. Saturday morning, Carney released a statement announcing that he “supports the United States” in its strikes on Iran.

 It is a feckless, bewildering, totally unnecessary position. It should call into question the prime minister’s supposed belief in the “prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the UN Charter,” as he told the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

Carney’s statement does not even make a boilerplate call for de-escalation. Instead, it cheerleads America “acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.”

That is a painfully naive and obsequious statement which blindly accepts an entirely unconvincing casus belli. 

So here we are. Canada, while not joining in the aggression, is standing on the sidelines cheering Uncle Sam. One can only wonder what this obsequious, appeasing stance presages when it comes to the CUSMA review this summer.