An axis of Babbittry

February 20, 2002

In case you missed it, here is the latest summary of Jean Chretien's position on war with Iraq, from our wire services. 1) There's no evidence a U.S. attack is imminent: it's "purely hypothetical." 2) The U.S. has promised not to attack without consulting its allies: "nothing will happen without consultation." 3) On the other hand, it might not: "If the Americans want to do something alone, there is nothing we can do." 4) In any case, Canada will not commit troops to the campaign without first being consulted: "We are not going to be given a fait accompli." In other words, we will participate, but only if we're asked. If the Americans decide to act unilaterally, they're on their own. We are not going to show up without an invitation.

This is classic Chretien. Begin by seeming to thumb your nose at the Americans: Just days before, at a joint press conference in Moscow with Vladimir Putin, Mr. Chretien had warned that the war on terrorism "must be done multilaterally; if we try to do it unilaterally it will go nowhere." Then, after taking heat for being "wobbly at the knees" or "soft on Saddam," protest that it's all hypothetical, that nothing's on the table. Little by little, turn the previous show of defiance -- we're not in, unless it's multilateral -- into an expression of support: if it's multilateral, we're in. Finally, when the issue comes to a crisis -- when, say, Saddam spurns an ultimatum to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country -- enlist for the duration. And why not? By backing the United States, we make it multilateral.

This is exactly the approach Mr. Chretien has taken to every issue of foreign and defence policy, especially as these touch on the relationship with the United States: from missile defence, to a continental security perimeter, to the prisoners of war controversy, and now to Iraq. Deny that it's necessary, deny that it's an issue, delay, fudge, only to agree with the American position in the end.

This may be astute statesmanship, but it gives the country's political class an acute case of whiplash. The minute Mr. Chretien raises that first flag of discord -- one of those fundamental disagreements that illustrate the profound differences between our two great nations -- the keepers of the conventional wisdom take it as their signal to kick into gear.

Immediately, identical editorials start to appear in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, instructing the country in what every right-thinking person must already know: of the obvious idiocy of missile defence, the odious ignominy of the al-Qaeda prisoners' treatment and the utter insanity of attacking Iraq.

(And I do mean identical. There isn't a sliver of difference between the positions of the two papers on any major foreign policy issue. They form an alliance of complacent self- satisfaction, an axis of Babbittry, conventional dull, and wrong.)

The writers of these editorials do not come to these positions, one suspects, as a matter of calm reflection. The reasoning is so lazy (missile defence is a bad idea because Russia is against it), the supporting points so irrelevant (there is no evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks), that one can only conclude they are written more or less as an afterthought. The position is that we are a different sort of people from the Americans, and not just different but better: higher-minded, more humane, nicer. Everything else is just details.

When they enlist on whatever side of the issue the Canadian government seems to be tilting, they must imagine they are doing a patriotic duty. The particulars of the issue are irrelevant. What matters is to instill in Canadians the proper attitude of knee-jerk dissociation with whatever position the Americans happen to take.

How unpleasant, then, to be so repeatedly led onto the shoals by the Prime Minister, the very compass by which they were steering. The guardians of Rosedale nationalism may truly believe, or think they believe, the precious certainties they utter -- everybody knows they're prisoners of war, an attack on Iraq could not possibly succeed, etc., etc. -- but for Mr. Chretien these are purely tactical staging points, brief handholds while he considers his next move.

His analysis does not even extend to anti-Americanism, as such. He will use it, as seems fit, and abandon it, when it is no longer useful. He is the constant triangulator, always seeking to balance one force off against another, whether in domestic or foreign politics - - the Americans against the Russians, the nationalists against the continentalists, idealists against pragmatists, pretending one day to sympathize with the one, the next day with the other.

The remarkable part is that his intended stooges buy any of it. Yet, perfect fools that they are, they do: again and again and again.