If you ask Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly what the solution to the Middle East conflict is, she will surely tell you that a “ceasefire” is what’s needed.
Channelling her inner Neville Chamberlain, Joly has spent the better part of a year pretending the C-word is the magic bullet that will put an end to all the sectarian strife in the Middle East and bring about a new era of peace and prosperity.
Israel planning on entering Rafah to remove the remaining battalions of a genocidal terrorist organization that attacked it on October 7 and has pledged not to stop until the Jewish state is destroyed. Ceasefire.
Israel finally strikes back against Hezbollah after enduring nearly a year of rocket fire that displaced 60,000 residents in the north. Ceasefire.
Iran launches nearly 200 missiles at the Jewish state to enact revenge for the killing of its terrorist puppet, Hassan Nasrallah. Ceasefire, of course.
On Tuesday, in the immediate aftermath of Iran’s second direct missile attack on the Jewish state in the past six months, Joly repeated the same, tired talking points that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers have been reciting for months.
“Of course, Israel needs to be able to protect itself,” she said, “and that’s why we’ll continue to support its security.” That “support,” however, doesn’t seem to amount to much beyond giving lip service to Israel’s right to defend itself.
This is, after all, a government that has had a de facto arms embargo in place against Israel since the beginning of the year and is currently trying to prevent ammunition produced in Quebec from being exported to the United States so it won’t end up in Israeli hands. What exactly are the Israelis supposed to defend themselves with — swords?
Having reiterated the mantra about Israel’s right to self-defence, Joly went on to say that, “At the same time, we need to make sure that parties sit down and the war stops.” She also expressed concern that Israel retaliating would lead to “all out war.”
A similar message was issued by Justin Trudeau. On Twitter, he said that, “Canada unequivocally condemns Iran’s reckless attack against Israel” and “fully support(s) Israel’s right to defend itself against this attack.”
It may not have been the clearest example of moral leadership displayed by a Canadian prime minister, but at least we can agree that a sovereign country has a right to protect its citizens from incoming missiles. Of course, Trudeau then repeated his government’s “call for de-escalation across the region.”
Similarly, after Nasrallah was taken out in an Israeli airstrike, Trudeau urged “calm and restraint,” saying that, “Canada is working toward a diplomatic solution that allows people to return home safely to Israel and Lebanon.”
Does anyone really believe Canada has the ability to play a constructive role in peace negotiations, given its hands-off approach over the past year? Why would anyone care what the leader of a backwater northern country thinks about events taking place in the Middle East? It’s like asking what Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II thought about the War of 1812. No one knows, because no one gives a damn.
Even the Israelis don’t appear to be taking Canada seriously anymore, and I certainly can’t blame them given that we turned our back on our longtime friend and ally in its darkest hour and don’t even have the moral fortitude to defend it against biased United Nations resolutions anymore.
In a media scrum on Tuesday, Joly said that she had “been in contact with my Israeli counterpart” and that she restated Canada’s position that “we need a ceasefire,” but was forced to admit that they had only been in “contact through text.”
I can’t exactly blame the Israelis for failing to take Joly’s calls. As she and Trudeau were sitting comfortably in Ottawa firing off tweets and text messages like a gaggle of school girls, U.S. President Joe Biden was sitting in the White House Situation Room, actively working to defend Israel.
Afterwards, Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security advisor, promised that Iran would face “severe consequences for this attack,” and that the United States will “work with Israel to make that the case.” Meanwhile, the Americans have been beefing up their military presence, sending additional troops, fighter jets and two aircraft carriers to the region.
The U.S. is, in other words, a significant player in the Middle East — one that can put weight behind ceasefire proposals, even if the Biden administration has been unsuccessful in its efforts to date.
Yet the real takeaway from Iran’s latest attempt to rain hellfire from the skies above Israel should not be that the Iranian mullahs need to be appeased, or that a deal must be reached to prolong an untenable situation that has seen Israel simultaneously defending itself from attacks coming from all sides — Hamas from the west, the Houthi from the south, Hezbollah from the north and Iran from the east.
No, the takeaway must be that the West needs to finally confront the one country that has been arming, training and directing all these terrorist groups — the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Anyone who believes that the Islamists’ genocidal ambitions can be snuffed out with the stroke of a pen is as foolish as those who thought Nazi Germany’s territorial aspirations would stop at the Sudetenland.
Israel tried making peace with the Palestinians in 1993 by signing the Oslo Accords and got a bloody intifada in return. It tried unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005, only to see it taken over by Hamas in a bloody coup and used as a staging ground for the October 7 massacre.
The United Nations Security Council ended the 2006 Lebanon War with a deal that was supposed to see Hezbollah withdraw to the Litani River. But it failed to enforce the resolution and instead allowed the group to grow in strength and turn southern Lebanon into a terrorist base from which to attack Israel.
Meanwhile, despite former U.S. president George W. Bush citing Iran as a member of the “axis of evil” 22 years ago, America and its allies have spent the intervening two decades strengthening its position as a regional hegemon, first by taking out its Sunni enemies in Iraq, and then providing it with billions of dollars through a failed nuclear accord.
We now find ourselves at a point in which Iran could develop nuclear weapons anytime it chooses and no longer feels constrained in its ability to launch missiles at Israel. This is a recipe for disaster that the international community has ignored for long enough.
Sorry, Joly, but in this case, a ceasefire simply will not cut it. There are only two things that will stop the genocidal ambitions of Iran’s leaders — regime change or war. The people of Iran tried the first option in 2022 after the death on Mahsa Amini and were crushed by their government. That leaves only one option, and we better get to it before Iran ups the ante by going full nuclear.
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