Let me start by using this column to thank a Maclean’s magazine columnist, Paul Wells, who has just unravelled one of our important political mysteries that otherwise would be utterly incomprehensible.

The mystery: Why does Justin Trudeau persist in his misguided quest to end Canada’s combat role in the Middle East?

When Trudeau first staked out his position before the election campaign, our role was a perfectly sensible one. We were doing our bit — even if the small one of just six bombers — to contribute to the coalition assembled by U.S. President Barack Obama in his attempt to “diminish and eventually defeat” the then highly successful and savagely brutal jihadist organization ISIS.

Trudeau’s threadbare reasoning on the topic was made particularly stark in an Oct. 2 speech in which Trudeau made no mention about ISIS. Indeed he said nothing about anything other than that he would bring home our war planes. He uttered not a word, though, about why he — that is to say, all of us collectively — should do this. As Wells notes, Trudeau’s one explanation was to accuse then Prime Minister Stephen Harper of being “secretive” about his own policy.

Actually, both of them were being equally secretive. Harper has since vanished from the scene. Trudeau, though, is still being as secretive, other than to tell Obama that his policy for Canada — whatever this may be other than to bring home the bombers — hasn’t changed.

Back in October, leaving other countries to do the heavy hitting may have been justifiable. Today, it’s highly questionable.

The scene itself has changed radically since Trudeau first promised to end Canada's combat role. ISIS is now reaching outwards, with frightening efficiency, to slaughter 130 Parisians and, earlier, to plant a bomb on a Russian plane from Cairo that killed 224 passengers and staff. As well, Belgium has had to shut down its capital, Brussels, after gaining information that a Paris-style mass murder is planned for that city.

This is to say that even though the need to “diminish and defeat” ISIS has grown considerably, it’s still our policy to skip the heavy hitting.

The softer stuff we will do. We will distribute humanitarian aid. And we will increase the number of our trainees there from its present 69.

Getting humanitarian aid to such war-torn territories as those of Syria and of ISIS itself, won’t be at all easy. Training can be done much more easily. But by no means as easily as is often assumed.

Back in 2011 to 2014, some 950 Canadian trainers did all they could to transfer their skills to Afghan soldiers. The successes we achieved during our intervention in Afghanistan were not abundant though. A major American training project in Syria fared far worse. It had to be cancelled when it was realized that of the hundreds recruited only four were actually fighting the enemy. (Often, such recruits sell their weapons on the black market.)

Our problem, no differently than was the case with Trudeau pre-election, is that we don’t really know what we should be doing out there in the Middle East, other than avoiding being criticized for not doing enough both by other countries in the anti-ISIS coalition (although they will never do this out loud) and by Canadians themselves.

The new defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, possesses the expertise and experience it takes to make the most of the circumstances his government is now in. But all he has to work with is the leftover tactic that Trudeau concocted for the sake of winning votes.

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As prime minister, Trudeau has so far performed exceptionally well. He’s now confirmed he is fallible. Just like his father.

Richard Gwyn’s column usually appears every other Tuesday.gwynr@sympatico.ca

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