Dealing with the Taliban, and other policy mysteries
Canada’s foreign policy is a mystery. Ottawa says it is firmly opposed to Afghanistan’s Taliban government, and yet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has joined other members of the so-called G20 nations in calling for aid to Afghanistan.
“It is very hard to see how you can help people in Afghanistan without involving the Taliban,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the G20’s current chair, said this week.
Draghi noted that this didn’t mean G20 nations like Canada had to formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government. But it did mean they had to be willing to talk to them as Afghanistan’s de facto rulers — even if the G20 disapproved of them.
It’s a practical position. Until recently, it was Canada’s default approach to foreign affairs.
Thus we talked to Syria’s murderous regime when necessary — without condoning its actions. Ditto with the theocracy that controls Iran.
During the Cold War, we sold wheat to our arch enemies in Soviet Russia. Later we made convenient deals with Fidel Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba.
At base was the principle of practicality: We dealt with whatever government controlled the territory, even if we opposed that government root and branch.
That began to change when Stephen Harper became prime minister. Harper’s Conservatives called for a new morality in foreign affairs, one in which Canada would be called upon to uphold its values overseas — even if doing so bore a cost.
Harper famously did this when he insisted on publicly lecturing China’s leadership on the need for human rights. His actions didn’t cause China to become more democratic, but they did play well to those Canadian voters at home who agreed with Harper that there was more to foreign affairs than the pursuit of the “almighty buck.”
Under Justin Trudeau, Canada’s foreign policy has veered between the practical and the ideological.
In most cases, Ottawa has taken its cues from Washington. Thus its approach to North Korea, for instance, merely echoes that of the U.S.
But in some instances, Canada has tried to carve out a slightly more independent course of action. For instance, Ottawa was instrumental in setting up the Lima Group, a collection of mainly South American nations dedicated to overthrowing Nicolas Maduro, the disputed president of Venezuela.
It was never entirely clear why Canada chose to play such a prominent role in the anti-Maduro camp, since there were only limited trade and economic benefits from doing so.
But like Harper and China, Canada’s flirtation with regime change did allow the Trudeau government to present itself as a champion of morality in foreign affairs.
A dubious morality, perhaps. To come into play, the removal of Maduro required a military coup. But a morality all the same.
As for China itself, the saga of the two Michaels has put Ottawa’s relationship with that country in a real bind.
How do you have normal relations with a country that has held two of your citizens hostage? Yet given China’s prominence in the world economy, can Ottawa afford a hostile relationship with Beijing?
No wonder that Trudeau seems to be following Washington’s lead here. U.S. President Joe Biden argues that China is sometimes a potential adversary, and sometimes a potential partner.
The trick, presumably, is to figure out which it is at any given moment. Expect Canada to muddle along. Our foreign policy, such as it is, isn’t particularly coherent. Sometimes, as with Afghanistan, it makes no sense at all.
But given that we generally end up doing whatever the Americans want us to do, maybe that incoherence doesn’t matter.