And we also know, as much as this may gall us, that there isn’t a whole hell of a lot we can do about any of this
The prime minister is absolutely right. Canadians need more information, a point he made, over and over, at an Ottawa press conference on Thursday, flanked by senior military and national defence officials. We need a full, thorough investigation of the apparent shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines flight 752. We need access to the scene and to data recovered from the plane’s recorder boxes. We need answers to more questions than we have probably even thought of yet.
So a war is off the table . That leaves diplomacy. Canada could recall the ambassador and shutter the embass … no, no, wait. We can’t do that either. Canada and Iran broke off diplomatic relations years ago, due to unacceptable Iranian intelligence activity in Canada. There are no ambassadors to recall, no embassies to dramatically close.
This is, as noted above, galling. Canadians will want justice, accountability, maybe even vengeance. What we’ll actually get, if Iran decides to co-operate, is permission to send a few air crash investigators to the scene. If we’re lucky. Those things matter sometimes. We’ve been able to do some good in the world through charitable initiatives and multi-lateral forums on ideas all nations, or at least most of them, basically agreed on. But soft power doesn’t deter rogue regimes all-too comfortable with hard power. Punching above our weight doesn’t help us when the other guy’s weight is measured in missiles. Canadians will demand action. The opposition parties will almost certainly accuse the government of not doing enough.
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