It’s certainly not a popular position, but one Canadian military expert says he’s convinced that pulling out of the military mission against the Islamic State and throwing support behind Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is the right choice.
Gwynne Dyer, author of the new book Don’t Panic, told The West Block‘s Tom Clark that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and similar terrorist organizations don’t pose a significant enough threat to Canadians to warrant putting boots on the ground or planes in the skies over Syria.
“Two Canadians have been killed by terrorists in the past 14 years since 9/11 – two.” Dyer said.
“Last year, admittedly, so it’s fairly fresh in our memories, but you know, even counting the two other Canadians who got radicalized and were the terrorists, that’s a bad car crash. Why would you write a law about that? And certainly, why would you send troops?”
In the end, he argued, military intervention from the West may be playing into the violent jihadist group’s hands.
“They want to come to power. And in order to come to power, they need popular support … you want to radicalize the population, what better way than to get the Americans to invade?”
Prime-minister-designate Justin Trudeau has promised to end the bombing campaign against ISIS and instead focus on training local troops, something that Canada has done in past conflicts. The timeline for the pullout is unclear, however, and for now, Canadian planes are continuing with the combat mission.
The United States government, meanwhile, appears to be moving in the opposite direction, recently announcing that it will deploy up to 50 special operations troops to assist Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria. They will be the first American troops on the ground.
READ MORE: U.S. special forces heading to Syria to co-ordinate fight against ISIS
A recent conversation between Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama did not delve into the specifics of military strategy and tactics against ISIS, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Both governments have made it clear they will not support the Assad regime.
But Dyer argued that if Assad’s government – which has been accused of war crimes – were to fall, there is really only one alternative group that could seize power. And it’s essentially “a clone” of ISIS.
“They have the same ideas, the same goals and they make up 90 per cent of the opposition fighters. So, if Assad goes down, these guys win.”
But what about the moral obligation to intervene when innocent civilians are being forced to flee their homes, or being slaughtered in full view of the world on You Tube?
“The problem with that, mainly, is that we have intervened a few times,” Dyer said. “You know, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, didn’t work out all that well, so the track record’s not encouraging.”
Comments