Carney Tempers Support For Iran Strikes With Call For Diplomacy

Quick to pick a side after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, Prime Minister Mark Carney is now urging diplomacy over escalation.

Speaking in Sydney on Tuesday, Carney called for a diplomatic end to the conflict — while underscoring Canada wasn’t consulted ahead of the strikes.

Still, he said Canadians stand with the Iranian people, “which is why we support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.”

Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty has emphasized that Canada’s military was not involved in the “preparation or execution” of Saturday’s attack, nor did Canada receive prior notice of the U.S. operation, “Epic Fury.” He added that Canada is not involved in the war with Iran “at this time.”

Canada’s support of the U.S. comes at a tense time in the bilateral relationship, as the two countries — along with Mexico — review the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. While preserving the deal is an economic imperative, Carney’s backing for the strikes is consistent with the worldview he laid out in a watershed speech in Davos, when he said: “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”

Carney echoed the line while fielding questions from Canadian media in the middle of his three-country trade trip.

He singled out Iran for its retaliatory strikes on civilians and infrastructure throughout the Middle East.

“The current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order,” he said. “Despite decades of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the tireless work of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the succession of sanctions and diplomatic frameworks, Iran's nuclear threat remains.”

Ottawa has also been working diplomatic channels to deescalate and prepare contingencies for Canadians in the region.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said that in conversations with Gulf and Middle East counterparts over the weekend she shared Canada’s desire for a peaceful solution.

On Tuesday, she told a Toronto business audience that Canada has hit the Iranian regime with sanctions on 500 individuals.

She also revealed that she’s asked her counterpart in Oman for access to its airspace, if needed, to get Canadians to safety. “Our top priority right now is the 100,000 Canadians that are in the region.”

In a social media post on Monday, President Donald Trump said it’s “too late” to talk. He is now suggesting the U.S.-Israel led war could last four or five weeks, or be over in a few more days.

In Canada, there was swift and predictable criticism of Carney’s support, as analysts questioned the legality of an act of war without the backing of the United Nations. The lack of U.N. support led Canada to withhold its support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“That is a terrible mistake. The Carney government’s first major error in the realm of foreign policy,” wrote international security expert Wesley Wark. “It seems we still struggle to unhook ourselves from thought and policy dependency on the United States, despite a brave speech in Davos.”

“The contrast with our language on Ukraine is stark,” former Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy noted in a newspaper column. “The double standard is obvious: when Russia uses force without lawful grounds, it is condemned as an outlaw; when the U.S. does something legally analogous, we kowtow in an effort to curry favour.”

Wark and Axworthy both said Carney should have lived up to the 2003 standard set by then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien when he said no — at the last possible minute — to then-President George W. Bush’s request to join the U.S. in the war to depose Saddam Hussein.

While there have been anti-war protests in Canada, Carney’s support for the attack is in lock-step with the Iranian and Jewish communities in the country.

At the U.S. embassy in Ottawa on Saturday, hundreds of Iranian demonstrators changed the channel on the frequent protests that occur there against Trump’s aggressive economic attacks on Canada, filling the air with chants of “thank you, U.S.A.”

Noah Shack, the CEO of Canada’s Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs, told POLITICO the criticism against Carney is unwarranted given the Iranian regime’s record of repressing its own people and exporting terrorism.

But Carney said Tuesday Canada is not prepared “to passively wait for the world as we wish it would be. We would like international law to always and everywhere be respected.”

Carney’s decision to support the strike is consistent with his “pragmatic” foreign policy that was reflected in his Davos speech.

He is currently in Australia to deepen trade and investment bonds with a Commonwealth ally before heading to Japan to do the same. He started his trip in India where he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched free-trade talks on Monday.

Canada shares a major foreign policy plank with the U.S. after it severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012, after passing a law that declared it a state sponsor of terrorism. The decision was driven by Ottawa's realization that it couldn’t guarantee the security of Canadian diplomats in its downtown Tehran embassy if the regime retaliated.

Similarly, Carney supported the U.S. removal of Nicolás Maduro, a leader that Canada had long said was not the legitimate president of Venezuela. Carney and others have also expressed support for Trump’s attempts to end the Ukraine-Russia war.