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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s much criticized ambiguity about the role of international law regarding U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran is more than an excusable stumble by an inexperienced politician operating in a challenging environment.

Carney is building a foreign policy “doctrine” that increasingly warrants a closer look.

Last October, Carney lavished praise on U.S. President Donald Trump for supposedly “disabling Iran as a force of terror” with U.S. strikes months earlier. While the prime minister has softened — but not withdrawn — his support for the current military campaign that began in spite of progress on peace talks, he has not explained why he has long disagreed with intelligence assessments that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Nor has Carney or his ministers refused to rule out some form of participation in the conflict that is rapidly extending to other Persian Gulf states.

An opportunity to provide clarity on such issues was rebuffed when Carney skipped an emergency debate in Parliament on the growing crisis. Meanwhile, the war continues to unleash enormous human suffering and chaos.

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[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca -2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

The world as it is, means that it's more nuanced and subtle then just "do good = good outcome", which is what you insist.

If your world view is just "every time you don't go HAM calling out every injustice then you're a bastard man", then literally every politician ever, both past and future, will seem like a bastard man to you.

Carney's literal entire epoint with "the world as it is", is calling out naiive leftists who think that the road to heaven is paved only with good acts and the road to hell isn't paved with good intentions.

[-] AGM@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 hours ago

The world as it is, means that it's more nuanced and subtle then just "do good = good outcome"

That's it? That's your understanding of the "Carney Doctrine" as a foundation for Canada's foreign policy?

Wow...

That is pretty, pretty shallow.

Also, I'll point out that you're misinterpreting and misrepresenting my position again, which is not "do good = good outcome" lol

Carney's literal entire epoint with "the world as it is", is calling out naiive leftists who think that the road to heaven is paved only with good acts and the road to hell isn't paved with good intentions

I don't even feel the need to comment on this further if you believe that's the entire point. I'll just let it stand that you believe it. Nothing really needs added beyond that, other than maybe to point out the humour in you referring to others as "naïve" while adopting a position that isn't actually even getting into the details of foreign policy we see in practice because it's so devoted to faith in the rhetoric of his speech.

[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca -2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Lmfao, you haven't made a single cogent point.

Go ahead and try to explain precisely how Carney is not living up to his Davos speech.

Just try. Be specific and don't boil things down to a black and white analogy. We'll wait.

[-] AGM@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

Lol. You haven't even shown that you understand the content of his speech. In fact, you've shown more that you don't understand the content of his speech. If you did, you would have picked up on the specific elements of his speech that I referenced for criticism earlier, such as the criteria for "Living in Truth" instead of retreating into transactionalism.

​Other people in this discussion have called Carney out on these failures too, including on Venezuela, Cuba, Qatar, and Iran, but you've stooped to insults or dismissal in response to them. I mean, we're in a thread discussing a whole article about concerns on it, but you're just burying your head in the sand of a poor understanding of a speech you don't seem to have even read properly.

​So, maybe you should first provide some actual substantial responses to the points already raised elsewhere in the conversation. If you're going to ask someone to put in the work to rehash a whole bunch of arguments already provided that you've chosen just to ignore or dismiss, maybe you should first do the work of demonstrating that you even understand the substance of the doctrine. So far, you haven't. You're just defending the branding while ignoring the reality people like Axworthy have pointed out in the article and others are pointing out in the discussion.

this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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