Canada is back fighting a war, but it is doing so in total confusion, united in its vision of destroying a monstrous regime but with no idea of how to achieve that goal and of how long it will take to do so. Opposition leaders Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party and Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party are pressing the government to outline its strategy.

 

The Canadian government is deploying six fighter jets, two surveillance aircraft, a refueling plane and up to 600 military personnel for six months to combat the so-called Islamic State or caliphate, which, as some Canadian Muslims say, is neither Islamic nor a caliphate and not even a state. Canada will train Iraqis and Kurds and will not join in the ground fight. It will fight by dropping bombs and firing rockets from fighter planes.

 

No one here believes that this modest effort will be able to defeat the IS in six months. But with the US and other Canadian allies battling the IS, Canada felt it could not remain on the sidelines. So it pitched in with modest efforts and hazy goals. 

 

Canadians are not the only ones who are confused. The US Air Force is doing most of the bombing, but Americans do not believe that air power alone will bring the IS to its knees. Americans and other Western powers have stated that they will not commit ground troops. They will only train Iraqis, Kurds and perhaps Syrians.

 

This only compounds the dilemma. The Iraqis and Kurds need training, but they also need adequate weapons and strong motivation. The policies of the Iraqi government of former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki alienated Sunnis and others. Some soldiers refused to fight the IS, fled or even joined the rebels. The Kurds have their own grievances and objectives. Clearly an effective coalition of Iraqis and Syrians has to be formed if the IS is to be confronted on the ground.

 

This confusion notwithstanding, Canadians are united in condemning the IS and wishing its demise. Its record of brutalities against women, minorities and others is horrible. As Liberal Party foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau said: “We all forcefully condemn this abhorrent, barbaric group of terrorists.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has produced a horrifying report on its savagery.  

 

Where the confusion and the differences between the government and the opposition New Democratic and Liberal parties lie is in their assessment of the situation. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose Conservative Party enjoys a majority in the House of Commons, asserts that Canada has to do its share and cannot shirk its responsibilities or abandon its allies.

 

Opposition parties respond that this response is tokenism and that the government has no real strategy to confront the challenge. They also assert that the government has not learned any lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

 

NDP leader Tom Mulcair said: “These are the exact same arguments that were used about the Taliban in Afghanistan to begin with. For 10 years, Canada was there, 40,000 troops, $30 billion, and a result that is less certain, to be charitable.” 

 

In 2011, Canada participated in the air campaign in Libya that toppled Muammar Gaddafi but the country is in chaos. In Afghanistan, 40,000 Canadians fought for 10 years beginning in 2002. They provided security and helped the development efforts. But Canadians agree that Afghanistan’s security will depend ultimately on whether the government wins the support of the people.

 

 

As to Iraq, former prime minister Jean Chretien asserts that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, in which some Western countries joined but Canada refused, created the turmoil that has resulted in the rise of the IS in Iraq.

 

“The legacy of Western colonialism in the Middle East had not been forgotten and was only exacerbated by the Western military intervention in Iraq in 2003 with the consequences we face today,” he stated. “A wrong decision, like invading Iraq in 2003, can have disastrous results that reverberate for years, as we have seen. The rise of IS today is in large part a result of that war.” 

 

Chretien favors leaving the military effort to Kurds, Iraqis and other Arabs, with the West providing military support. He cautions that Western air attacks, some of which kill innocent people, will create more resentment against the West.

 

Canada should take the lead in providing humanitarian assistance, he stated, by immediately contributing $100 million to the World Food Program to feed refugees and by accepting 50,000 refugees in Canada, he states.

 

But, as Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister John Baird have said, feeding the refugees and providing shelter to some in Canada will not defeat the IS. Only a strong military effort will eradicate it as a threat to its people, the region and also to the West.

 

That’s the dilemma. You can’t defeat the IS by air power alone and the West is not willing to provide ground troops. The only solution is to train and arm Kurds, Iraqis and Syrians. But they remain divided among themselves with contradictory goals. To defeat IS they have to agree on their objectives and how to achieve them. Maybe the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation can help.

 

—  Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.