Canada is having a Kandahar moment all over again. And it could well end just as badly.
This weeks decision by the Conservative government to extend both the timeline of our Iraq mission and its reach into Syria, means Canada is hurling itself once again into an adventure whose implications our government barely grasps. Is it really possible that we have a responsibility to drop more firepower onto this catastrophic landscape where ISIS is the biggest problem, but actually not the only one?
The Conservatives, sacrificing global citizenship to narrow electoral interests, want us to believe theres no meaningful role other than complicity in the killing spree. In so doing, they are squandering our countrys international prestige on behalf of a government in Baghdad well known for its abuses against the Sunni population and beholden to truly terrible allies. With two or three degrees of separation, Canada is suddenly reliant on the odious prowess of Shia militias some Iran-sponsored with their own war crimes resumes.
Even our chosen collaborators, the Peshmurga of Iraqi Kurdistan, the forces who supposedly need our training, have been fingered by Human Rights Watch for destroying Arab homes, detaining civilians and moving to repopulate Arab villages with Kurdish residents.
Still, defanging murderous ISIS is the most compelling project. The question is, how to do this.
Many astute observers are pushing the idea of a multi-layered but weaponless assault on ISIS, referred to by Maryland-based Foreign Policy in Focus analyst Adil Shamoo, as the onion peeling strategy. By which he means fostering policies that systematically hive off ISISs various layers of support, an endeavor he and others are clear will not be successful while the West is dropping terror from the skies.
Though its not likely to mean much in the immediate scheme of things, the fact that all three opposition parties in the House are committing to a no-vote on the Conservative motion will widen the allowable discourse. Given the current hysteria, thats much to be thankful for.
This whole tragedy will not be solved by military means, long-time NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar tells me. It will have to be dealt with by governance and diplomacy. The UN security council has had three resolutions to do with Iraq, all to do with stopping the flow of foreign fighters and the financing of organizations like ISIS. We should be doing more in that area, as well as pressuring governments in the area to prevent financial transfers to ISIS and focusing on its exports, like oil, through the Turkish border. That would be more effective than CF-18s.
The NDP, he says, based its assessment on his own experience in Iraq with then Foreign Affairs minister John Baird, and on submissions to Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee hearings into the initial mission. I didnt hear one person in Iraq ask us to provide soldiers or enter into a bombing campaign. Not the president of Iraq, the foreign minister or the Canadian ambassador. All asked for humanitarian assistance. There are still 5 million Iraqis in need, 2 million of them displaced.
At the Rideau Institute in Ottawa, president Peggy Mason, too, says the public needs to understand that calming violence is a complicated task requiring sophisticated deliberations, not deployment fever.
The only real solution starts with ending the war in Syria and also Libya. That requires diplomatic negotiations. The UN has been working very hard with little high level support for negotiations in Syria because the Western position is that Bashar Al-Assad has to go. But its become more and more obvious that its better to have Assad as part of the solution, provided theres international supervision under strict control.
No settlement can be reached, she says, without working through key Assad-backer Iran, a major problem since Canada has now taken to shunning talks where Iran is a player. Last time when Kofi Annan tried to initiate them, negotiations feel apart because Saudi Arabia blocked them they didnt want Iran at the table, and U.S. and Canada backed them. In February at Davos, the Norweigans tried negotiations and Canada under Baird announced that we would not participate.
Its part of the madness, she says, that while Canada relies on the ground strength of Iranian-supported militias, we work to freeze them out of peace discussions.
Mason also doesnt think our government understands what a strategy to counter ISISs recruiting appeal actually looks like. It certainly doesnt call for reticence about the authoritarianism of fellow coalition countries, like Saudi Arabia.
In the guise of fighting terrorism, these governments have been able to wipe out all opposition. That is not an effective way to address the grievances that extremists exploit. The behaviour is actually fuelling the terrorism we say were fighting. We made the biggest arms deal weve ever done with Saudi Arabia [involving armoured personal carriers]. These have been used by the Saudis to crush the Arab Spring in Bahrain.
One of the most influential proponents this kind of aggression, diplomatic- style, is Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.
She says, The militarization of the conflict has been a disaster on all sides.
The air attacks, she argues, have only served to convince the very Sunnis the U.S. hopes will break from ISIS that the U.S. is acting as the air force for the Kurds and the Shia against the Sunnis.
Beheadings are being carried out not only by ISIS but by the free Syrian army and the Saudi government. We have to get out of the mindset that because one form of brutality is particularly visible on the internet, we have to go to war. No one has clean hands.
Ellie Kirzner is a contributing editor at NOW Magazine.
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