Power Politics

"Some people see Canada as being a great even-handed referee.  We have a side.  The side is freedom.  The side is economies.  And I think that's what people expect us to stand up for .
"We cannot be afraid to take difficult decisions for fear of consequences.
"We've taken a very hard line on Iran because the regime is inciting genocide  It's an anti-Semitic regime that denies the Holocaust, which backs terrorism.  I suppose if we kept quiet, some would think that would be better."
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

Canada is not in the running competing against the United States as the great world arbiter, the chaos-immersed referee.  America is an enormous presence on the world stage.  Its power and influence is wide-ranging like no other country in this era of history that we inhabit.  Its economic power, albeit muted of late, its military strength, its technological advances, its scientific predominance, its social-cultural and popular entertainment culture dominates the world arena.

It has the strength of presence to take on the mantle of sheriff of the world.  One that it has accepted more ruefully than determinedly, in the absence of the world's nations to adequately police themselves.  In a world of ongoing strife and human rights abuses, of national ideological, religious and political systems still mired in the primitivism of clan-affiliation and tribal identities, American fealty to freedom and justice, the rule of law and even-handed democracy stands as a beacon of light, however imperfectly.

There are glaring areas where the United States itself represents a country whose politics and popular culture, societal covenant and culture of plural equalities seems lacking at times.  There are other countries that see themselves surpassing the qualities of judgement and dedication to social eqauality that made the U.S. great, but these are small nations with insubstantial-by-comparison powers, incapable of dominating a global outreach.

Canada falls somewhere in the middle stretch.  Canada has a liberal-democratic conscience which impels it to act on the world stage in a manner commensurate with its beliefs and values.  On the side of freedom, and of human rights, as Mr. Baird alluded to.  In the popularity contest of allied states with shared agendas and values which is the United Nations Canada has a reputation for fairness and humanity.  Neither traits endear us to the greater bulk of the membership who care little for either.

At the United Nations Canada has not been shy of late in stating our position unequivocally in condemning the human rights abuses that many other countries are complicit with and disinterested in countering.  In speaking of a time long past reflective of his grandfather's Canada, one afflicted with its own ethical and racist past, Mr. Baird spoke of "The great struggles in his generation were fascism and communism"; ours is radical Islamism.