The Carney doctrine, in theory and practice
Canada's strategy of appeasement is both a moral disgrace and a strategic error
Barely two months on from Mark Carney’s widely-discussed Davos address, the prime minister recently had this to say in the wake of the US-Israeli attack on Iran — among the first victims of which appear to have been over a hundred schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12:
Nothing about Ottawa’s position is left ambiguous here, and the language is striking in that it does not even pretend to offer any justification rooted in international law. Officially, Mark Carney and Anita Anand not only endorse the Trump administration’s pretext for the war (only adding in a later statement that Canada’s military will not itself be getting involved) but have also eschewed any pretence that the country’s global posture rests on much beyond the law of the jungle. In view of that, I can’t have been the only one to think about the prime minister’s assertion in Davos that his government would remain “Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.”
On this basis, there is quite plainly no defence of US-Israeli bombing to be made — and, again, it’s notable that Canada’s leaders have not even tried to fudge one. As Lloyd axworthy, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Liberal, observes in the Toronto Star:
