Abstract
The Middle East has always played a paradoxical role in Canadian foreign and defence policy. On the one hand, Canada’s geographical distance from the region and the patterns of Canada’s political economy have meant that Canadian interests have only rarely been directly affected by the conflicts that have riven the region over the last eighty years. On the other hand, during this period Canadians have consistently been drawn into the politics of the Middle East. That involvement has been driven by a range of factors, including alliance politics, broader geostrategic considerations, human rights and development assistance concerns, economic interests, and a growing web of transnational linkages as migration to Canada from the region has increased over the years. This collection recognizes that as a result the Middle East matters to Canadians, many of whom expect their government to be actively engaged in the region, and frequently frame their country’s role in the Middle East as that of a middle power.
Despite the title, however, this book—happily—is not about Canada as a middle power. On the contrary: the “middle power” in the title appears to be little more than a rhetorical artifice to permit a titular juxtaposition with the region being examined, and an appeal to the way many Canadians continue to see their country’s role in world affairs, rather than a theoretical frame for the examination of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East. For there is no attempt, by either the editors or any of the authors, to frame the collection as a whole, or any of the individual chapters, explicitly within the evolving contemporary scholarly debate on the thorny (and perpetually unresolved) issue of how we might distinguish a middle power from any other kind of power in global politics. The few references to Canada as a middle power in this collection sidestep the scholarly debates and simply take the definition of middle power as a given (with the result that a middle power is whatever the reader wishes it to be).
But this is all good, for it allows Thomas Juneau and Bessma Momani, two of Canada’s foremost experts on the Middle East, to focus on a more important task: exploring contemporary Canadian policies towards the region. In this book, they have assembled a team of seventeen academics and practitioners to provide us with an excellent and well-researched survey of contemporary Canadian policies and approaches to the Middle East.
To be sure, the contributors make clear that we cannot meaningfully talk about a singular or coherent Canadian “policy” towards the region. Instead, Canada’s approach has been messier, more disjointed, and more muddled. This reflects not only the diversity of the region itself, but also the region’s lack of strategic centrality to Canadian interests, which allows the Canadian government to take a less integrated policy approach to the range of key issues that have confronted decision-makers in Ottawa.
The chapters in this collection explore those key issues over the last two decades. Three opening chapters focus on the broader geostrategic context, examining how Canada’s relationship with the United States has shaped Canada’s policy towards the region, Canada’s contributions to the multilateral coalition organized against the Islamic State, and Canadian efforts to support security services in the region. The transnational link is examined in chapters on foreign fighters returning to Canada and the Canadian approach to Syrian refugees. While the editors purposely do not try to cover Canada’s policies towards each of the countries in the region, there are chapters on Canada’s approach to development in Jordan, “illiberal democracy” in Turkey, political Islam in Egypt, and weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. While the issue of human rights appears in numerous chapters, one chapter focuses on Canada’s often confused efforts to promote human rights in the region. Three chapters focus on different aspects of Canada’s approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. A concluding essay summarizes the chapters and makes an eloquent pitch for the development of a broader strategic vision by Canada in the region.
While this collection might not tell us much about Canada as a middle power, it does nicely demonstrate how—and why—the Middle East continues to matter to Canadians.