Sun Feb 6/05
Simmer down, Beavis

"This [Iraq] was an invasion Canadians opposed," said Jack Layton yesterday, "and to go in at this point, aside from being very dangerous for our troops, would be a reversal of the position Canada has had." Well, no. In order to reverse a position you have to have had one to begin with, and nothing that came out of Jean Chrétien's mouth ever added up to a cogent anti-war platform. What I wanted to hear at the time was something like "We do not believe the justification for war being offered for our approval to be correct. Therefore, notwithstanding the existence of numerous other possible justifications, which may in fact be much stronger than the one being adopted, Canada cannot ethically commit troops to this war on these grounds."

So, despite vehement protestations to the contrary, I never saw any contradiction in hoping the Americans would win or in offering "moral support," whatever that means. This was the United States of America vs. Saddam Hussein, for Pete's sake — if you need a minute to pick your horse in that race, you're beyond help. But again, the issue for me was not the ends (insofar as the ends were to remove Saddam) and it certainly wasn't the means, for changing the banner from "find the WMDs" to "enough already with this Hussein prick" would not have changed a single strategic decision made on the ground. The issue was solely why we would be doing it, and as frustrating as it was not to know why we weren't doing it, at least our confusion wasn't costing Canadian lives.

That said, I have no problem with sending Canadian troops at this point to aid in Iraq's reconstruction. The "it's your mess, you clean it up" school of international relations, to which Layton obviously subscribes, is dangerously naïve and embarrassingly childish. Whatever the reason, Iraq is now the main front of the war on Islamic terrorism, a war that Canada has wholeheartedly embraced warts and all. A stable, western-friendly Iraq may be a pipe dream, but an Iraq that stays indefinitely in its current state of affairs is a threat to the entire world, Canadians included. We should do whatever we can to improve the situation.

Or, we could use the whole thing to score cheap political points. Enter Stephen Harper, who provided this amusing riposte:

Conservative leader Stephen Harper is warning the Liberal government it will pay a "severe price" if it sends Canadian troops to Iraq…

"I sat through an election campaign [yeah, that sounds about right -ed.] where the Prime Minister accused me of having secret plans to send troops to Iraq. If it turns out he has secret plans, this has to be one of the biggest election deceptions in history."

However, Harper didn't rule out supporting such an initiative if he could be convinced it was safe.

No indeed, that would have been a very strange thing for him to rule out. The prospect of the Liberals sending troops to post-regime change Iraq is a bad fit for Harper's histrionic brand of opposition (note the "one of the" half-heartedly qualifying "biggest election deception in history"). What is this "severe price" the Liberals will pay? Is Harper going to force an election because the government finally did exactly what he's been demanding they do for two years, and then do the exact same thing? Man, that is weak. Far better for Harper, I think, would be to wipe the foam from the corner of mouth, make his point about Martin's election scaremongering, and give the initiative the support it deserves.