Don't Mention the War

On the conspicuous absence of Libya as an election issue this spring.

In the Ottawa Citizen, Dan Gardner writes that, considering who the candidates are, it’s rather odd that we’re not hearing much about Canada’s participation in the Libyan intervention during the election campaign. “[T]he man who ordered the military into action is seeking a mandate,” he writes. “His opponent is a human rights scholar with special expertise in the very issue of international interventions to protect people from their own governments. It's hard to imagine circumstances more likely to produce a sustained debate about this engagement.” And yet Libya is hardly a hot topic on the hustings, which Gardner attributes to its uselessness as a wedge issue (both the Grits and Tories supported it), Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff’s unwillingness to remind voters they both backed the disastrous Iraq war, and the Liberals’ tendency to turn into shameless pacifists come election time.

Perhaps, but the fact is that foreign policy is rarely a big election issue. Like ethics in government, it’s something that everyone agrees is important until a writ is dropped, when it quickly takes a back seat to issues perceived as more immediate. Like the economy, or how many questions politicians take at each campaign stop.

In the Toronto Star, Rami G. Khouri writes that Qatar and the UAE’s involvement in the air strikes against Libyan forces is a development of major importance. Many have pointed out the seeming hypocrisy with which the two Gulf nations are moving troops into Bahrain to suppress the uprising there while simultaneously using their jets in Libya to support a revolt. But Khouri writes that it is actually a sign of political maturity “because all governments act in inconsistent and hypocritical ways when it comes to defending their national interest.” Qatar and the UAE’s sorties in Libya “probably mark the birth of [Gulf] countries trying to actually forge tangible foreign policies in which they use their assets to back their principles – however contradictory.” We suppose this is some sort of progress, but that might be lost on the people of Bahrain, and whomever else happens to fall on the wrong side of the line.