Mr. Harper’s international vaudeville act
As he relishes his new status as the western world’s éminence grise of centre-right politics — confirmed by his chummy recent meeting with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott — Prime Minister Stephen Harper should be paying more attention to how inept and amateurish he has been made to look by his fellow Conservative leader, UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Twice in recent months, Cameron’s activist reaction to international events has exposed the ineffectual nature of Harper’s responses. These incidents involving Sri Lanka and Russia tend to confirm the impression that Harper is squandering Canada’s good name in the world and its record for using its authority to shape events.
The comparison with Cameron (hardly the most prepossessing member of this generation of North Atlantic leaders) gives depressing weight to the argument that Harper has no clear idea of Canada’s national interests and is tone deaf on foreign affairs — perhaps purposefully so.
What Harper doesn’t seem to get is that if you don’t lace up and get on the ice, you don’t influence the outcome of the game. A middle power like Canada has to participate, even if it sometimes means dealing with foreign leaders with whom we profoundly disagree, or even find disgusting. When confronted with these choices, Harper tries to make a virtue of skulking off in a self-righteous huff.
Read more... http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/06/12/mr-harpers-international-vaudeville-act/
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