FROLITICKS

In case you weren’t aware, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sent half a dozen CF-18s to help bomb targets in Iraq held by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISEL). As Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau noted, the government whipped out our CF-18s to show them how big they are. He rightfully asked why Canadians aren’t talking more about the kind of humanitarian aid that Canada can and must be engaged in. Besides thousands of civilian deaths, the previous Iraq war also created hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing that country’s on-going civil war. With the onset of ISIS, thousands more Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries and safe havens within Iraq. They are desperate for food, shelter, clothing, medical supplies and other essentials to survive the coming winter conditions.

Let’s take a step back to clarify Canada’s historical position vis-a-vis the first American incursion into Iraq to dispose of Saddam Hussein. The Iraq War began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The government of Canada did not at any time formally declare war against Iraq. The then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said in 2002 that Canada would, in fact, be part of a military coalition to invade Iraq if it were sanctioned by the United Nations. However, when the United States and the United Kingdom subsequently withdrew their diplomatic efforts to gain that UN sanction, Jean Chrétien announced in March 2003 that Canada would not participate in the pending invasion. As it turned out, this was one of the best decisions that Prime Minister Chrétien ever made during his government’s term of office.

Recently, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien defended Justin Trudeau’s controversial decision to oppose Canada’s air combat mission in Iraq. He believes that the fighter planes deployed by the Harper government are a “very marginal” response to the crisis caused by ISIS militants. He concluded that the best ‎contribution Canada can make is by engaging in massive, not token, humanitarian assistance. The leader of the official opposition, Thomas Mulcair of the New Democrats, has also stated that Canada’s first contribution should be to use every diplomatic, humanitarian, and financial resource at our disposal to respond to the overwhelming human tragedy unfolding on the ground. We should also help to strengthen political institutions in both Iraq and Syria.

Let’s face it, the U.S. has been in this conflict for well over 10 years and has been fighting ISIS under one name or another. While ISIS has renamed itself several times since 2004—al Qaeda in Iraq, the Mujahideen Shura Council and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in Syria—it is literally the same insurgent group that U.S. forces have been battling for over a decade. The Americans propped up a corrupt Iraqi regime under Maliki, which favoured the Shiite population at the expense of the Kurds and Sunni. With the evident inability of the Iraqi security forces to fend off ISIS militants, the Americans once again have had to step in militarily to defend the Iraqi government through air strikes and provision of thousands of military advisors.

President Obama has already warned that American military and financial support will be needed for a long time in this new campaign. The Canadian contribution is but a mere token of some sort of support. The danger is always that such policies can go quickly from mission creep to mission leap. As in the case of Canada’s contribution to the Afghan mission which started out with only a few dozen soldiers and ended up with many casualties, when will this mission end? Canada’s international credibility as a country with an extensive history of humanitarian achievements is in jeopardy. Unfortunately, ISIS is not going away anytime soon. In a year’s time, there is little doubt that the Canadian government will have to seriously rethink its policies!