A rchive Date
[ 19-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_london.html
Chretien will be judged for failure to lead
By SALIM MANSUR - For the London Free Press
March 19, 2003
When U.S. President George W. Bush announced in the Azores the "moment of truth" had arrived, he was in the company of America's two close allies, the prime ministers of Britain and Spain, in the "coalition of the willing" prepared to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq through regime change. Historians will examine this period of diplomacy to understand and explain how 9/11 reconfigured international politics.
The interesting question will be how the issue of disarming Iraq - a matter unresolved for 12 years since the end of the 1991 Gulf War - placed the UN in a disarray, made new and unmade old friendships and began the process of redefining a new international order at the beginning of a new century.
For Canadians with a sense of their country's history and place in world affairs, the odd thing about this "moment of truth" is Canada's non-presence in the company of allies and friends, particularly Britain and the United States, when international politics is most discernibly being reshaped in ways that will affect them deeply.
During the defining moments of the last century - the two world wars, the making of the UN, the formation of NATO, the Korean War, the Suez crisis and the entire period of the Cold War years - Canada was present as a highly respected partner in the core membership of what constituted the Atlantic alliance.
Canada's present absence from this company of allies is deliberate, due to Prime Minister Jean Chretien's reluctance to be a member of the "coalition of willing" in the forthcoming war against Saddam's Iraq.
In an address to the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations on Feb. 13, Chretien stated, "if it must come to war, I argue that the world should respond through the United Nations."
The obvious question for historians will be why Chretien's insistence the British, Spanish and American position on the Iraq question lacks UN approval, when he joined the American-led NATO coalition in war over Kosovo in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia, which was conducted outside the UN framework.
Chretien's speech was a polite rebuke of the American policy on Iraq. He showed incredulity later when visiting Mexico about the Bush administration mentioning regime change in Iraq. Similarly, for France and other Security Council members to indicate being misled when the United States mentioned regime change is disingenuous.
Bush's message in his UN speech of Sept. 12, 2002 was unambiguous. He challenged the UN to either enforce its resolutions or become irrelevant.
But a successful end to inspection would still leave the tyrant, Saddam Hussein, holding power in Baghdad, and the life of his regime extended for another generation with his sons succeeding him. The endgame on Iraq, a regime change, was, therefore, unmistakable from the moment the Bush administration tabled resolution 1441 in the Security Council.
Chretien's position during these months was evading questions relating to Canada's participation in the "coalition of the willing" that divided his parliamentary caucus and lacked a clear support among Canadians. Two days after Chretien's speech in Chicago, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed his party and country greatly at odds with his government. Blair explained the moral case of war against Iraq being "removing Saddam."
The two speeches of Chretien and Blair could not have been more different. Blair reminded his country of the consequences of appeasing tyrants in the past, described the new perils to security and peace in the post-9/11 era and how international solidarity demanded serial violators of human rights not go unpunished.Two weeks later, in an exclusive interview, Blair remarked, "Let the day-to-day judgments come and go; be prepared to be judged by history."
Historians will judge in due course whose instincts among political leaders in democracies on the subject of Saddam's Iraq were right.
On Chretien, however, one opinion will be unavoidable, that his leadership at a critical moment in history was to lead from behind an unsettled Canadian public opinion in uncertain times.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Wednesdays. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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