Eric Morse and Eugene Lang take a rather more, er, realistic view than the great majority of our politicians and punditry (as did former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in a certain case in which however he certainly showed no courage):

UN hot seat can be uncomfortable

“Thank God we’re not on the UN Security Council; our diplomats work all their careers to get us on the Security Council but there are times like this when you don’t want to be on it,” prime minister Jean Chrétien once said to foreign minister Bill Graham.

The “time like this” was the run-up to the second Iraq war in the winter of 2003. It was an agonizing period in UN and Canadian relations, as the United States was pushing hard for the Security Council to endorse an imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. This was arguably the most significant issue to come before the council in decades. And Canada’s prime minister of the day wanted no part of that deliberation on this extraordinarily difficult question for Canada.

Next week, after years of lobbying in New York by Canadian diplomats, and more recent high profile interventions by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the UN General Assembly will decide whether Canada edges out Portugal for a coveted two-year seat on the council…

It has been suggested we don’t “deserve” a seat this time around. But — if “deserving” is a criterion of international politics at all — Canada’s contributions to UN missions in the Balkans, where we served for 15 years and had 1,400 troops deployed as late as 2003, and our leadership of the UN-mandated ISAF mission in Afghanistan in 2003-04, not to mention Canada’s more recent sacrifices in Kandahar [which continues to be authorized by the Security Council and hence is a UN mission], more than qualify this country for Security Council membership…

A seat on the council might mean Canada finds itself having to pronounce on — or contribute blood and treasure to — issues that it would rather avoid entirely. Imagine, for example, the political anguish in this country if we were on the council during another Arab-Israeli war. It is hard to imagine Canada would have any influence over the Security Council on a modern-day Arab-Israeli war, yet a heavy price would be paid in domestic discord.

As a Security Council member, and given that Canada was one of the architects of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine, we would have difficulty in not supporting a council bent on invoking R2P as a justification for intervention, even if we were not prepared to commit the blood and treasure necessary to support such an intervention. This would be awkward for Canada, to say the least [see also: "There’s a responsibility to protect us from Pink Lloyd and Soft Rock"]…

Former ambassador to the UN Paul Heinbecker recently proposed a 10-point agenda that Canada should bring to the Security Council. It summarizes everything that the advocates of soft power in Canada would wish our role in the world to be. As such, it likely won’t mesh with the foreign policy agenda of the current government. But it is at least a framework [the authors are being kind; Mr Heinbecker's article is a piece of typically Canadian mush advocating a bunch of nice ideas that won't happen whatever this country might try to do]. And if you are going to go into that room with the big boys, you’d better have something to guide your thinking and voting.

Eugene Lang, former chief of staff to two Liberal ministers of national defence, is co-author of The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar. Eric Morse is a former Canadian diplomat who is now vice-chair of security studies at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto.

Related:

Does Canada deserve Mickey I.?/Bobbety’s smooth move

John Robson of the Ottawa Citizen wonders where the Mickster’s brains are at, and why we should even bother to care about winning a (temporary) seat on the UN Security Council…

Update: E.R. Campbell at Milnet.ca does a vivid vivisection of Mr Heinbecker’s mush mentioned above (if such an action is possible).

Mark
Ottawa