How will Baird walk the walk?
Iran needs to be dealt with, lest the Israelis decide to go it alone
of all the places Iran might have expected an ultimatum from — the uN, the International Atomic energy Agency, Washington, Jerusalem — Canada’s foreign ministry was probably not high on the list.
And yet, on a recent trip to Israel, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, speaking with a local newspaper, said he was giving Iran three months to set aside its presumed nuclear ambitions.
“There’s always a reason to [delay action] another two or three months,” Mr. Baird told the Times of Israel. If the Iranian clerics wanted to prove wrong those critics who think Iran is operating in bad faith on their nuclear program “they can make meaningful progress [with the West],” he said. “These people don’ t deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
Asked what happens if another two or three months pass without progress, Mr. Baird answered, “I think fair and reasonable people will have shown that they have taken every reasonable measure, every diplomatic measure, to try to successfully bring this to a conclusion.”
But if every reasonable diplomatic measure has been shown to have failed, what else is there? Mr. Baird did not answer a question from the Times about whether that meant it was time for intervention — almost certainly meaning military action. “I’ll just leave it at that,” Mr. Baird said. But what else could it mean?
Mr. Baird’s tough talk, though no doubt well received by many in the Israeli government, raises intriguing questions. Why does Canada believe that two to three months is the critical time period? Barack Obama said last month that his intelligence shows Tehran is a “over a year or so” away from developing a nuclear weapon — though the president added, “obviously we don’t want to cut it too close.”
And assuming that the Canadian government views three months — a mere 90 days from now — to be a firm outside deadline, what do we intend to do on the 91st day?
Indeed, what could Canada do? We’re not economically powerful enough to break Iran’s economy via sanctions. We don’t have the military power to take on Iran, except as a small part of a coalition. And we have already essentially broken off all diplomatic contact with Iran, so we’ve played those cards, too. Short of sending staffers to heckle Iranian diplomats every time they give a public address, there’s not much else Canada can do.
So why is the Foreign Minister drawing a bright red line?
Tough talk is good. Too many disgusting regimes are handled only with the gentlest care. A bit of plain speaking is welcome, and Mr. Baird’s Conservative government has been refreshingly upfront about Canada’s support for free and democratic Israel. That was long overdue and desperately needed.
But all this tough talk must eventually raise a question: If this is how Canada feels, what are we going to do about it? When the answer is clearly “nothing,” the Foreign Minister runs the real risk of simply embarrassing himself when his bluff is inevitably called.
The strangest part of all this, of course, is that no one expects Ottawa to solve the Iranian problem itself. Canada is not a major global power-broker. We are, due to our size, simply not in that league. As grateful as the Israelis must be to have a true friend in the West, that gratitude will not trick them into thinking we have aircraft carriers and armoured divisions that we do not.
Perhaps Mr. Baird was speaking not just as the Foreign Minister, but as a Westerner who’s In-The-Know. If our larger American and european allies have also decided that three months is when action must be taken — and are prepared to take that action — then Mr. Baird may simply be stating what he knows to be fact. But that seems unlikely, for two reasons: First, neither the europeans nor Americans seem much inclined to do anything at all about Iran right now, preferring instead to see if newly elected president Hassan Rouhani, a so-called reformer, leads Iran down a different path.
Second, and more importantly, if an intervention really were imminent, it would be unfathomable for the Canadian foreign minister to go spilling the beans about it to an Israeli newspaper.
Iran does need to be dealt with, and sooner rather than later, lest the Israelis decide to go it alone. Some degree of reassuring Israeli officials is no doubt called for. But that can only be truly meaningful coming from Washington. Mr. Baird may have his heart in the right place, but he’s just not in a position to make a difference. Realistically speaking, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Mr. Baird wasn’t overplaying his hand in an effort to tell Israel and its supporters something they may never tire of hearing — that they have a friend in Canada — but, given a situation as grave as the Iranian nuclear threat, is a message of severely limited usefulness.