Should Canadian businessman and reality TV star Kevin O’Leary decide to run for the Conservative leadership, he’ll have a hard time winning over Conservative supporters with his musings on foreign policy, strategists suggest.

For decades, the Conservatives position has been to take part in multilateral military actions with the aim of containing aggression — not to limit Canada’s involvement to peacekeeping operations. We’re reminded of this position every day in question period when interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and Conservative MPs demand the government keep the CF-18s in the combat mission against ISIS — or at least hold a vote in Parliament on changes to the mission.

But O’Leary, who will speak at the Manning Centre conference later this month, recently doubled down on his view that Canada shouldn’t be involved in the military mission against the Islamic State (ISIS) or any other international military engagement — with peacekeeping being the exception.

O’Leary told News Talk Radio 580 CFRA on Tuesday that he doesn’t “want to bomb or get involved in any campaigns as a Canadian other than keeping the peace. We are the only country along with the Finns that can do that, and we are wasting our equity.”

“I actually believe the last person or the last nationality ISIS wants to put a bullet through is a Canadian. I really believe that. The only country that has the moral authority in the history of the Middle East to actually act as a peacekeeper is a Canadian soldier,” O’Leary said, adding that he formed his opinions about peacekeeping while watching Canadians at work as a boy living in Cyprus in the 1960s.

Susan Elliott, a Conservative loyalist and principal at Strategy Portal, thinks O’Leary’s defence policy is an odd stance for a potential CPC leadership candidate to take — and suggested it won’t sit well with Conservatives.

“He must be doing it to differentiate himself, and perhaps to appear less hard-right wing, but I don’t think it is the right way to do that. Even centrist Tories like myself understand the need to combat terrorism, like ISIL, through assertive military action,” said Elliott in an email.

Elliott argued that the traditional peacekeeping model can’t be applied to groups like ISIS.

“They are not interested in sitting around a boardroom table and talking, as their interest is not in ending the violence. The only way we stop ISIL is through force. I think O’Leary will not find many in the Conservative party who think he’s right on this,” she said.

Former long-time Conservative staffer and strategist Keith Beardsley agreed, saying that with “‘peace-keeping’ being so strongly associated with past Liberal governments, I expect this would not be a winning platform plank for him.”

Tim Powers, a former senior public servant in Conservative governments and vice-chair of Summa Strategies, said O’Leary’s comments display a “naivety” that’s troubling in a potential leadership candidate.

“I think in part it’s a political play to attract perhaps blue Liberals and others in that sort of category into the Conservative fold … and potentially sign them up as supporters if he intends to run. But I think it shows a disconnect with his understanding of some of the modern challenges in conflicts that are out there in the world that Canada has been asked to partake in.”

Powers also called the peacekeeping model “a bit too dated” and suggested it’s more suited for the 1980s than the asymmetrical conflicts of 2016.

“It’s a model that’s more often been applied when there’s obvious states or clear actors that are involved in a conflict, when you can act to keep sides separated and manage the peace,” he said, adding that groups like ISIL tend not to be concentrated in one area.

“So unless Kevin has some grand concept where he’s going to zone all the world a peacekeeping zone and build some bright blue fence, I think it speaks to a naivety when it comes to his understanding of international military affairs.”

Powers said O’Leary’s comments on foreign policy go “against the grain of a lot of different members of the Conservative party” — but that doesn’t mean he can’t reach out to people outside the party proper.