What can you say about Canada’s relations with the rest of the world? Will we ever be able to dig our reputation out of the dumper where Prime Minister Harper and the Bobbsey twins have taken us?
It was bad enough when Stephen Harper let Flossie Bobbsey (a.k.a. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird) lose us a seat on the Security Council. It was bad enough when Stephen Harper allowed Freddie Bobbsey (a.k.a. Jason Kenny, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) to put the screws to refugee claimants. The one-two punch of Harper’s Bobbsey twins is enough to destroy any country’s reputation.
And the Iran affair is beyond belief. Can you imagine a foreign affairs minister of any country to be so rude as to announce the breaking of relations with an unrelated country at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit? Why on earth would Canada’s foreign affairs guy do the deed when in Vladivostock, Russia? This is a gathering of some of the most powerful leaders in the world and if he had just farted, it would be glossed over.
But you cannot gloss over an announcement that had obviously been in the works for a while. This had been decided while Prime Minister Harper and Baird were in Ottawa. It had its roots in the recent visit to Ottawa of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the favour Netanyahu had come to Ottawa to ask.
It is hardly a gesture that does any good for Canada. It harms our reputation as peacekeeper. It smears our reputation for fairness. If it were necessary, it would only follow a long series of speeches and negotiations at the United Nations. For this act to be carried out, there had to be far more grievous concerns than are already evidenced. Is Harper copying George W. Bush with his fictitious ‘weapons of mass destruction’?
If Canada had the money and organization and the smarts to field its own Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it still would not have enough eyes and ears in Iran to replace our diplomats. Our embassy in Tehran might have seemed useless but it was a gesture that we were willing to listen. Only idiots stop listening.
Prime Minister Harper is micro-managing the Canadian government into foreign affairs positions where we should not go. Is he so keen to destroy the reputation we once had?
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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