Canada and ISIL

The international community has a "responsibility to protect" when it comes to civilians facing a real threat of high level human rights abuses or crimes against humanity. The evolution of the responsibility to protect is, in my view, a great advance in international law. We now have a theoretical/jurisprudential basis for international action to stop genocide such as what happened in Rwanda in the 1990s. Canada has a history in Rwanda and it is entirely appropriate that Canada should take a key role in future actions further to the responsibility to protect. One might well say, at the risk of some oversimplification, the responsibility to protect is the great victory of liberal humanitarianism over the conservative Realpolitik of people like, say, Henry Kissinger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect

In the short-term, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) needs to be militarily prevented from expanding. This is for two reasons.

The first reason is that it is clear that ISIL carries out murder and ethnic cleansing against civilians in the areas they take control of where the civilians do not share ISIL's exact fundamentalist religious orientation. The more territory they control, then the more civilians they will kill. Clearly, this is the classic situation where the responsibility to protect is triggered.

The second reason to prevent ISIL from expanding is that it is a destabilizing force in the middle-east, a region that is already very unstable. While I believe it is unlikely that ISIL can ever be entirely rolled back, it is vital that they come to accept that they are not going to be able to expand indefinitely. Once that happens, the nature of the organization will eventually change and it will become more amenable to normal types of diplomacy. That is to say, while they believe that God is supporting their advance, then religious fervour will be more important than pragmatism and normal political calculation.

If international military action to stop the expansion of ISIL is valid and necessary, and I believe it is, then it is entirely appropriate for Canada to join its allies in this action. Indeed, as I'm sure Romeo Dallaire would agree, Canada should be a leader in the expansion and application of the responsibility to protect.

I do not believe that, as the government of Canada alleges, ISIL has any particular reason for attacking Canada or Canadian civilians.  The current government is alleging this so it can move forward with action against ISIL while still clinging to its conservative credentials.

It is unfortunate that the opposition parties in the Canadian House of Commons have chosen to oppose the government's actions against ISIL. This allows the current government to put its own conservative spin on this action. I do agree with the opposition parties that there are dangers in any intervention, and there should be objective triggers and bench-marks regarding when the intervention should end, but I think opposing the intervention is an unfortunate step, both morally and politically.

In the long-run, ISIL is a political and geopolitical reality that will have to be accepted. The concept of the nation of Iraq (and possibility Syria) is at an end. ISIL (or some related body or structure) will be very likely have to be part of whatever comes later. Although ISIL currently has a strong aspect of civilian suppression based on conservative religious dogma (and this, as I said above, is a reason for military intervention, it would be a mistake to suggest that it, and the political and social forces it represents, amount solely to a "death cult".  Once ISIL is stopped from expanding, it will have to be dealt with.