The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: Could Trump Learn from Bush’s Gulf War in 1990?

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Arif Lalani, former Canadian Ambassador to Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, joins Janice Stein to discuss George H.W. Bush’s approach to the Gulf War in 1990 compared to Trump’s war in Iran, why he did not bother to build any coalition, how Janice sees this as an incoherent and “shambolic war,” the work of Witkoff and Kushner, and how nobody seems to be doing their homework in the Trump administration. They then discuss why this was a military action of choice, how Trump saw this as another Venezuela, why the UN is increasingly irrelevant, the possibility of a ceasefire and diplomacy, and if Trump is looking for an off-ramp.   Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Hi, everybody, Steve Paken here. Let me set up this week's show thus. Remember when George Herbert Walker Bush, that's George Bush, the father, was the president of the United States? In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. President Bush then spent the next several months on the phones, consulting with allies, getting advice, putting a coalition together. He put that legwork in because when America struck Iraq to get Saddam out of Kuwait, Bush had a grand, coalition with him and they got the job done in relatively short order. How does that compare with how the current president of the U.S., Donald Trump, has prosecuted the current war against Iran? That is our topic for this week's edition of World on Edge on the Paken podcast. Just before we introduce our two guests today, maybe a word about what's behind me. Normally, I've got a picture of Queens Park back there, but it felt just kind of wrong to have a picture of the Ontario flag over one shoulder and the Ontario legislature over the other shoulder while we're talking about war in the Middle East. So I got a buddy named Michael Schwartz

who painted something that if that doesn't look like a world on edge, I don't know what does. It's chaotic. It's hectic. And it creates exactly the mood I think we're going to need for this discussion. And with that, let's welcome back. Janice Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy to our program. And this week's special guest, Arif Lanani. He's a distinguished fellow also at the Monk School, but he is here today because of his excellent knowledge of the region. He's the former Canadian ambassador to Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates. He also represented Canada on the United Nations Security Council, and he joins us from Lisbon, Portugal. Arif, it's great to see you again. How are you managing these days?

I'm well. Great to see you both. Good to see you, Arif. Let's put you to work right away. You heard me described the way that President Bush, the father, 36 years ago, organized a coalition in order to achieve a foreign policy end, which he was quite successful at doing. How would you compare that approach to the approach taken by the current president and his administration? Well, they're really kind of night and day, aren't they? I mean, you had, if you look at the big picture kind of takeaways, I think there was a very clear objective and a mandate for what happened in 1991, it was to liberate Kuwait from an invasion by Iraq. There was a clear international mandates. There were a series of UN Security Council resolutions. And there was a very clear

coalition that was built over months and months. And ultimately, the outcome and the intention was to stabilize the region and to stabilize global order. If you were to judge the action, today of what's happened in the last two weeks, you know, you have no UN resolution mandate. You have very unclear objectives between two coalition partners and a coalition of two partners, one of whom I think in some ways is quite problematic in bringing others on board. And you have right now a net destabilizing effect, not just on the region, but on the global economy. So very different things. I mean, there's a lot of other factors.

You had the Soviet Union in 91. Now you have Russia. China is a very different player. And also the United States is energy independence very different. In 1991, they were very dependent on Middle East oil and now they aren't. So some different factors, but ultimately this is a very unilateral action today versus a global coalition. a few decades ago. That's a great scene setter.

Janice, what would you add to that in terms of comparing and contrasting the two styles of the two presidents? Oh, I think one thing that we'd probably add to this picture, Steve, it's not that there are conflicting objectives among coalition partners. You know, there's often tensions in a coalition. There's conflicting objectives inside the U.S. president. And that's really just an enormous issue. If you get up on Monday morning, you say, I'm going to war because, and Tuesday morning you say,

well, I'm going to war because of something else. And it changes again on Wednesday. And by Wednesday afternoon, you've changed it back. This is, in some sense, an unprecedented performance by a leader of a major power. going, I can't ever remember this kind of incoherence, inability to articulate a set of objectives. And if you don't know why you're starting a war, Steve, how do you know why you're going to stop it? Arif, I heard Janice on another program described this war as shambolic. The approach to it was shambolic.

That's a great word. Do you share her view on that? Well, it sure appears so, you know, if you're judging it today, I agree entirely with Janice. You know, I often tell people I'm speaking to when they ask for an assessment. I'm like, I can give you an assessment, but nobody really knows what President Trump is going to do tomorrow. And as Janice alluded, sometimes I think he's not sure. So it's very unpredictable, very differing views. I do think that there is another key player here, which is Prime Minister Netanyahu.

And I think he has some clear views about what he wants to achieve. I think he would like to see regime change. And I think he would like to continue to prosecute a war in southern Lebanon. So, you know, there are, and there are always differences amongst partners. But if you only have two partners, you know, those differences matter. Yeah, and let me add one other thing, a reef to what you've been saying, because I think it really matters. And it's so good to have a reef with us here.

There's no staff work in the White House. That sounds very boring, right? But there's no staff work. This president wings it. He has a small group of people, Steve around him, Pete Hagseth, Marco Rubio, a few others. You know, the one really serious professional in that mix is General Dan King. And it must be incredibly trying for a senior general to have to do briefings and be bookended by Donald. Trump, as we've just said, you don't know what he's going to say. Nobody is doing their homework.

Just let me jump in here. I think Janice is absolutely right. And, you know, when I was on the Security Council, and nine years later, finally, we were still working on the structured aftermath of the American operation in Iraq. But not having any UN Security Council resolutions, the thing that UN Security Council resolutions make you do is they make you do, is they make you do the homework because you have to debate these issues, you have to get people on board, your ideas are challenged, and you have to do the staff work. And so, you know, the staff work is definitely missing. And if you'd work through, you know, some kind of international system, it would have forced some accountability and some debate as well. Well, he's got his son-in-law,

Jared Kushner, and he's got, oh, what's the other fellow's name? Steve Whitkoff. He's got, yeah, those are his sort of international troubleshooters. It doesn't really matter the region, the day, the issue. Those are his go-to guys. Are you saying that's not adequate to the task? It is not. Let me say it directly. It is absolutely not.

There's no really systematic prep work. Who's the number two, the number three? Who's calling the number two, the number three in the neighboring states? and asking some of them to reach out to the number two and number three if we knew who that was right now, even inside around. It's that kind of dog lead work. Steve, it's like a really great executive producer and an assistant executive producer for you.

The viewers don't see those people, but you know what a difference they make to the quality of a program, right? This team does not have that. Sure. Let me raise this issue with you, Janice, and that is, you know, Donald Trump has said that the reason he didn't give any of his allies a heads up on this and didn't seek consultation with any of them is that he thought the element of surprise was very important for a successful military campaign. Is that a legitimate explanation? Well, it was an element of surprise here, which mattered, but not for a legitimate military campaign. It mattered because they, um, they, assassinated the supreme leader. And when they, when Israel got the intelligence that there would be this high level meaning. And it really is in many ways, that's a piece of the puzzle that I think will be very interesting

to unravel when this war is over. Because why they would all take the chance of being in the same building together, everybody could see this was coming. You didn't have to be an expert. But there are lots of theories about why that may have happened. But that was the only element of tactical surprise here. There's overwhelming conventional military superiority from the air. Iran has no air defenses at this point, and it doesn't have much of an air force.

They didn't have a Navy. But where it actually had capabilities were in ballistic missiles, and ballistic missile launch sites. And those were taken out without surprise, see? And the remaining capabilities, which are proving so resistant, are what we call asymmetric capabilities, right? You compensate for the strength of your adversary.

And that's what Iran has been working on doing for a decade. Surprise doesn't play here. The reason Donald Trump didn't tell anybody, first of all, he has contempt for most of them. Let's be honest. That's on a good day. And secondly, many of them would have pushed back. Well, okay, Arif, let me make the argument Donald Trump would have made in his own head,

which is I've made the decision to do this. I don't need anybody else's help. And there's no point in consulting with allies and getting their advice because one of them will inevitably leak it. And there goes my big, that's my ace card right there that I would lose. Does that make any sense to you? I mean, look, good for you for trying to get inside Donald Trump's head. I'm not going to try that. You know, it makes some sense.

But I do think, I don't think it was very clear to President Trump what he really was going to try to do and how he was going to do it. I think they had not gamed this through. I think they might have underestimated the response. They might have overestimated the impact of killing. killing the supreme leader on day one. I think there were a lot of people who thought the regime would crumble. But there were so many, in my view, you know, there were so many kind of logical contradictions in this strategy, right? I mean, you can't on the one hand say, we're taking out the leader, we're going to continue a massive bombardment, but we want

people to either come out into the streets or wait until we give them a signal. It just seems to have been an operation which, you know, was driven by military targeting, right? I mean, there were a series of military targets. The military can achieve their objectives. But the, you know, the Western record on regime change through air power and military intervention is pretty much zero in the 21st century. Even Venezuela was not a regime change, right? I mean, they took the number two in the regime. So. Well, let me argue back with you a little bit here, Arif.

Okay. So let's not get in the president's head because we can't. But I think there's no question he was emboldened by what happened in Venezuela. Oh, you know, it happened overnight. 12 hours. You take out the number one. And there was clearly pre-work done with Dulcee Rodriguez. There was.

The number two in Venezuela. Yeah. And she steps out. to the plane. All of a sudden, there are negotiations which really matters to Donald Trump.

And some political prisoners are released in Venezuela and it's stable. And he walks away from the same thing. He thinks, this is not hard. All those whims in the Democratic Party and in London and Paris

who say this is hard. They just don't understand. This is really not hard. Now, he made one really revealing comment. which, again, these pieces, just stay with me and, you know, the academics are going to have a great time here. He said, look, the people we were talking to were killed in that strike, which suggests to me there was, there were some conversations. He thought he had a version of Adelze Rodriguez, and he thought this was going to be easy.

But either he didn't have that version or he killed that version. So either way, it's not there. Yeah, that's, well, that strike was done by the, by the, by the. Israelis, right? It wasn't done by the United States. And they didn't have full intelligence of the 40 people that were in that room. I think he still thinks he has that person. Could be. I think he, so I kind of agree with you, Jans. I think in their mind, I think there is a scenario where you take out more of the leadership. They're not finished taking out the leadership. And, you know, I think in their mind that they may have a figure in mind that will come up and try to take charge and then say, okay, I now want to reform.

I might even invite somebody as a transitional leader, et cetera. If that works, I think it'll be a lot of luck that was involved. But there's a problem with kind of executing that strategy, which is there are all these other. implications on the economic security side and on the Gulf that are building up, including for American farmers who have to do spring planting and they have to have fertilizer, etc. So, you know, in the media, they talk a lot about this race about who has more missiles and who has more interceptors. But I think there's also a race about how much economic impact can be taken while this regime change strategy, you know, plays out.

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an example of that, and I want to get your comments on this. On the one hand, President Trump started this war by saying we've got the best military in the world. We're going to do this on our own. We don't need anybody else's help, and that's why I didn't consult anybody else. But it wasn't too deep into this war when he said, actually, we sure could use some help from some of the other NATO countries. And they said essentially, forget it. You know, we weren't part of the planning in this. We're not going to help you with too terribly much of anything significant, certainly nothing offensive as it relates to the military here. And President Trump then, you know, said a few nasty things about some of the NATO allies because he was miffed that they wouldn't do what he wanted.

Is it reasonable for him to be upset about the fact that he's out there on his own without, you know, without Canadian troops, without British troops, without French troops, without German troops, without Japanese troops, et cetera. No, it really is not, Steve. And it's not because he didn't engage any of them before. They weren't part of the planning. They weren't even told. They weren't consulted.

We know for a fact that he really did not. He didn't talk to Ottawa beforehand. You know, you find out when you turn on your, when you turn on your phone in the morning and you see, and you actually find out from Twitter that a war started. You know, they didn't really, the United Kingdom is one of the United States's oldest, most reliable allies. They show up along with the Aussies. None of them were told. So, and how is it, by the way, that, and are you?

if you and I were talking about Stafford, how could you imagine that you're going to go to war against Iran in the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz are not going to be closed? I mean, that's just inconceivable, frankly. Where's your plan for that? And if you don't have a plan for that, that's a terrible, terrible planning error, which is a strategic error. And if you do have your plan for it, don't you tell your allies before.

So I'm right. It's shambolic, Steve. Shambolic. There's that word again. Areef, you know, we remember not too long ago that Donald Trump said something, I can't remember if that a public event or a press conference or what it was, but he basically accused the Western allies, his Western allies, of quote unquote, you know, staying at the back of the pack when the war in Afghanistan was taking place.

And the suggestion was the Americans did all the heavy lifting and they were at the front and all the NATO allies were at the back of the pack. And I wonder, I mean, you tell me, Aree, you know the players here, how much of Britain, France, Canada's saying, we're not taking part in this, is those countries now saying to Donald Trump, well, you know what, you slagged us before. So, buddy, you're on your own this time. Well, look, I don't think it's about equating it to his comments on Afghanistan. And, you know, I mean, I was there. In fact, Janice also came to visit while I was there on the ground. I mean, the Canadians held, I think, the toughest real estate in Afghanistan, which was Kandahar.

And there was a time that we were losing a soldier a week in that country. So as were the Brits and all that. So this idea that we weren't on the front lines is just pergastrous. But I don't think that countries, you know, respond to that pettiness with their own pettiness. So I think there are bigger reasons why countries aren't here. And as Janice said, look, we were not part of the planning. This was not a war of our choosing. It also was a military action of choice, right?

There was no clear imminent danger or invasion that's been proven. So I think there were other reasons for this, including, look, Europe also has its hands full with helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia. And that requires cost, it requires ammunition. It requires attention. So I think there's just more to it here. But there's peak too. There's peak. If we sort of circle back to our conversation where we started, you know, if you go back to the Gulf War that George Herbert Walker Bush prosecuted against Saddam Hussein,

I am told that I think the history books vindicate this. I'm told that George Bush called Brian Mulroney, then the prime minister of Canada, and said, give me your advice, and the Canadian Prime Minister said, go to the United Nations, get a good housekeeping seal of approval. Once you do that, you're off to the races, and you'll be able to build your coalition, no sweat. And Bush, listen to the advice, thanked him for the advice, and then did that. And the results are there for everybody to see. I wonder how much differently it would be this time if Trump had tried that. Let me chime in on that one, because this is the one area. I disagree with or each. I don't think UN resolutions are what they were.

in the day. I don't. I think we're in a very different world. I think the UN is a sad remnant of what it used to be, not fit for purpose in a world where five powers, China, and then Britain, France, have vetoes along with Russia and the United States. It doesn't represent the world. You know, there's not a single Gulf kind of.

for instance, that has no India, no Brazil. And yet we in Canada have this residual resort to the holy grail of the United Nations, which more than often than not fumbled. And first of all, there's zero chance that a resolution would have ever passed the UN Security Council, this one. No way would this have been authorized. And secondly, if it had, so what? So I think the time for Canadians to move on.

Yeah, just hang on. But so let me jump in here for a sec, because I don't get anyone who characterize me as a defender of the UN. Look, I served on the Security Council when the last time Canada was there, which sadly was over 20 years ago. Why sadly? Well, look, the UN, you're quite right. The UN, the UN doesn't compel agreement, right? The bargain of the UN Security Council with five pro-knit members who have nuclear weapons is that, that they're supposed to get their act together.

And they come to the Security Council once the negotiations have taken place. And so the reason in 91 we had Security Council resolutions, one is because the U.S. wanted them for a number of reasons. And second, that they made the deals with China and the Soviet Union to allow the Security Council to function. it certainly is not functioning now, hasn't been functioning for decades. And I would say that, you know, the Russians and the Chinese, after the UN resolutions in the Arab Spring,

which permitted the aerial bombing of Libya, the Russians and the Chinese said, we're washing our hands of this. You betrayed our trust in all of this. And one might ask, in the last 12 days, 14 days, or anybody heard from the UN Secretary General, it is an afterthought. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. But it's because the five permanent members don't talk to each other. And usually it has been the Americans that do the convening behind the scenes or the Brits. Neither of them have been doing that for quite some time. And we'll be back right at. after this. All right, let me acknowledge here that as we sit here taping this, we are, I guess, a couple of days into President Trump's offer to the Iranians that he will not bomb their significant

energy infrastructure in exchange for an opportunity for five days, I think he said, to give diplomacy a bit of a chance here. Janice, the significance of that and more than that, the underlying story behind why you think Trump made the offer. Oh, I think he very quickly was about the markets. And it's always about the markets for Donald Trump. And there was a market signal. And, you know, the markets rose yesterday and the price of oil dropped. It lasted 24 hours and he's right back in it, frankly.

Because people understand we've got a structural problem. If this is forced off today, Steve, we're talking about months of disruption in global energy markets. Look what's happened to natural gas infrastructure in the Gulf. There, you know, the Qataris have said openly it's going to take months to repair this. So why did he do this? Because he had to climb down. And that was he just seized whatever he could. So it only postpones the moment of reckoning until Friday or Saturday, frankly.

I think there's no. chance that those points that he talked about in scrums all day yesterday are agreed upon, there's no chance. He said there's 15 things we've agreed on. Yeah, I just think that's, don't take it to the bank, any of it. The Iranians in very tough negotiations before this war started, refused to concede on enrichment and refuse to have the enriched uranium, which is so much. the focus of this, moved outside of the country. They now feel they have the momentum in this war.

Why would they concede now when they didn't concede four weeks ago when the United States had significant coercive leverage because your best leverage is before you start. It's not once you start. It's before you start, frankly. And if you missed that moment, then it's months of inflicting damage on the infrastructure of Iran, how long that has taken the Iran-Iraq war? Eight years before the Supreme Leader at that time conceded. So I think there's nothing to those agreements. But some things are happening, okay, beneath the surface.

One, there is an informal understanding that Iran will not attack Saudi Arabia, which is very, very interesting. Look at the pattern in the last 48 hours. there are no drone or missile strikes against Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabia has been able to send a compelling message to the Iranians. We are one strike away from joining this coalition against you in the fight. So the fact that the Saudis are now protected is a message to some of the smaller Gulf states that are looking for a way out here.

The way out may not come in the, just as the way in wasn't. Well, we normally expect the way out may be very different. It may come from a series of understandings. And don't underestimate the role that Pakistan will play as we move forward because while the West wasn't watching, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign a mutual defense treaty and Pakistan is a nuclear power. Arif, what are you seeing?

Well, look, I think, yes, Saudi. Pakistan did sign this agreement. Saudis have always thought that Pakistan was an entryway to nuclear weaponization. The other thing the Pakistanis have done on nobody was watching was build a rather nifty fighter aircraft that costs much less than anything the West has developed and a number of countries around the world want to purchase it, including Saudi Arabia. And I think that that's another lesson here of the last two years. You know, if you are the Gulf Arab states, your other takeaway from what Israel has been doing in the region is that you need to be militarily strong.

And so there's going to be an arms buildup. And the cooperation with Pakistan is also part of that. Yeah, look, I think there, Trump is definitely looking for an off-ramp. I agree with January about what the pronouncement was yesterday, clearly was aimed at the markets and trying to buy him. some time. What he does in two or three days, buy more time, and a series of offerings. You know, the other thing that President Trump does, has done, is kind of declare a deal, which generally doesn't get executed, and then the details get negotiated after and some parts get implemented, right? That's really what he's done on tariffs. It's kind of what he did on

Venezuela, it's what he's done on Denmark. And I think you're going to have some variation of that, possibly here on Iran, which is to declare a deal rather than an agreement. If that's the case, what's in the deal? I mean, he claims victory. And I think it remains to be seen what can be in the deal, right? You could say to the Iranians, look, I know you want reparations, but I've already lifted sanctions. And so take that, sell that oil as your reparations. You know, it's in your interest to open the straight.

I think the elements of a deal can be there if you're willing to talk. But President Trump's track record is, first, he needs to declare victory. Whether it matches reality or not, he just needs to declare victory. What kind of victory is this when you have, look, you have a regime. There has been a regime change in Iran. I'm saying this all the time. There's been a regime change. The clerics are weakened.

There's no question. Clerical leadership in Iran is badly weakened. The Supreme Leader was put in place by the Revolutionary Guards. He's the candidate of the Revolutionary Guards. It's not clear how badly he's injured. He is not governing. We have in Iran a regime change. We have the consolidation of power by the revolution.

Revolutionary Guards. What does that mean? It is more radical. It is more militant. It is more aggressive and it's less restrained than the previous regime. Yes. But there was a regime change. With more than that, right? I agree. You have a harder-line government. You have the straight of hormones closed. You have sanctions lifted on Iran and Russian oil. And you had to invite the Chinese to help you. Yeah. And the fatwa that Ali Khomeini issued against nuclear weapons, the religious degree, died with him. Yeah. Well, this kind of regime change is certainly not what Israel had in mind when they decided to participate in this war as well. Nor is what Donald Trump had him on. Right. So now, but Trump, we understand the way he does business. He can declare victory and go home. That's not going to work for the Israelis who are still going to be over there. So is that to say, Janice, that if Trump decides the war is over for him, does Israel keep going?

Because this is certainly not the regime change they signed up for. No. Trump has a capacity to stop Israel in a day. He has done it before. He had a conversation with Netanyahu, which led to the order to turn Israeli planes around. He can stop Netanyahu. And if he wants to, he will. But you're right.

that the consequences of a radicalized military regime that is much more aggressive are going to be felt by two groups. One Israel, for sure, but I think the Gulf states are living in a totally different world. This is an earthquake for the Gulf states. And it would be interesting, Arif if I can, just ask one quick question. Not for Saudi Arabia, which is a large state, but for the small states. States for Abu Dhabi, for Dubai, you know, which is frankly a city state, whose value proposition to the world is, we're safe. You come invest here. We are a platform between Europe and Asia.

And Dubai flourished under those kinds of circumstances. That's exploded. What's the value proposition now for these smaller states that have had their infrastructure targeted? They're hotels targeted, their airports targeted. This is an earthquake in the Gulf. Well, look, I don't, it's a setback. I don't think that the value proposition changes. I think the one thing you have to remember is that the emirates in particular, which is about 20 years ahead of the Saudis in terms of the market, right?

And I think there's also a reason why Riyadh hasn't been attacked as much. One, it's further. And two, no money travels through Riyadh. right? Saudi is the bigger economy and it will be the stronger economy 25 years from now, but it isn't now. The global economy travels through Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. Cargo, passenger, all the major airlines have connections through there, the sea lanes and the financial industry. So what is it that the Amaradi proposition has been? It hasn't just been that we're a safe place. It has been that we are an open place. We have the rule of law from the British legal system

We have the world's largest capital of funds. We have an open society, et cetera. So that stack is not easily replicable elsewhere, right? You have Singapore, but it doesn't offer the same stack. Hong Kong no longer offers that. So the thing that the United Arab Emirates has to be is not the safest or 100% safe. It just has to be safer than the alternatives. So I think that proposition is intact.

Clearly, this is a setback. Yeah. They're going to have to rebuild, unlike Saudi, which ultimately is right now a poor country, despite what people might see in terms of their royalty, the United Arab Emirates financially can withstand this easily, right? It has fiscal reserves that are about 240% of its budget, of its GDP. unlike other countries, they will be able to spend their way out of this. They've diversified their economy significantly away from oil.

So it's a setback, and the longer this happens, the more unsafe people feel. The only other point I'll make that I'm watching for so far is how many of the 90% of foreigners who live in the United Air Marine, how many of them want to leave? and they have not been leaving by the tens of thousands. I've heard stories of evacuation flights that have been put forward by a Western country, and they had about a thousand seats available, and only 145 nationals of that country showed up, because people have built their lives in the Emirates. And they're not going to, they're not going to leave easily.

Well, one of the traditions that we've started on this show is to wrap up by putting to our guests, and we don't give our guests a heads up on this. These are surprise questions. A question that we do get from our viewers. And this one, Janice, I suspect you know this guy. We got a question the other day from Peter Sherman, who's a former member of the Ontario legislature. He represented Thorn Hill at Queens Park.

And his question was about Canada. So let's try this. Peter asks, do we matter? Canada makes statements about what should or shouldn't happen. Does anyone actually care? We have no dog in this hunt other than, sitting in the bleachers and rooting for whomever. Okay, Janice, what do you say about that?

I think Peter's absolutely right. We don't matter. This is not, we don't have assets in the region. We have relationships, but we don't have assets in the region that are going to make any difference. And when you don't have assets in the region, I think it's appropriate to have a little humility and make less use of the word should and must. unless you're prepared to do something about it.

I actually think you lose credibility when you issue those kinds of statements, and yet you don't have any assets to bring to the table. I know it's standard diplomatic practice to say these things, but I think, again, the world has changed, and it's actually grating when you say this. It's heard everywhere as preaching on both sides. of the line and it's not helpful to this country. Areef, we seem to do a lot of, and I'm not picking on anybody here.

This has been a practice, I suspect, for 30 years. We do a lot of pontificating and a lot of expressing of moral outrage and saying things like the world needs more Canada, but we don't seem to have a lot of skin in the game during a lot of these international crises. And what do you say about Peter's comments? Yeah, you know, when I was in the foreign ministry, I used to tell my folks, and I even advise the ministers under the previous government. I said, you know, stop what I call Canada's plain. We go around the world. We used to go around the world, just lecturing

everybody and not backing it up. And I know from firsthand experience, there was no time for that. And often Canadians willingly like to confuse politeness with respect. And we will go to meetings and people will be very polite to us, but that doesn't mean behind the scenes they're respecting us. I think we need to speak less and do more. And also, we should stop waking up every day wondering whether we matter. You know, that's not what countries do. We just pursue our interests. Get on with the job where we have something to put on the table. We should put it on the table, but please stop Canada's explaining. Well, I have been both polite to you too. because in part, that's the way I do things, but I also in part, because I do respect you both so much.

And I want to thank you for your contributions to this program. Just before we go, I do want to remind people that we've started a little Patreon community online. And we offer different levels of ways that you can support what we're doing here. We are introducing new elements all the time on the Paken podcast. And one of the things that we're doing is offering web-exclusive videos on our Patreon page. We've got a number of new things that we drop in there from time to time. We also give you an opportunity to pitch show ideas to us and guest ideas. And we do follow up on those.

Somebody said I wanted to see some more red line debates on the show. And we're doing that now. We've had one already, and we are in the throes of planning a second one. And we call them red line debates because there's a red line right in the middle of the screen, separating the two protagonists. And anyway, more of those to come. you'll also get episodes ad-free, and you'll get them before everybody else does if you join the Patreon community. And to that end, I want to thank a couple of people, Don Stevenson.

Don Stevenson, my goodness, I think he just turned 92 years old. He was a former senior advisor to prime minister, as he was called back in the day, Prime Minister of Ontario, John Robarts. So we're going back to the 1960s, and Don saw one of our episodes and liked it, and he's supporting us. So thank you, Don. and somebody who didn't want necessarily her real name used, but she has a nom de plume, or perhaps given the subject matter for today's show,

we should call it a nom de guerre. And her name is Mount Weasel Davis. Now, that is not her real name, but she thought it would be kind of cool if I called her that on this show anyway. So Mount Weasel Davis, thank you for your support as well. A reminder, if you want to join that community,

patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. All of our shows, if you've missed them, are archived at stevepeakin.com. You can find them there. Janice and Arif, really good to have the two of you on the Paken podcast today and good wishes to you both. And a shout-out to your artist friend

who painted the cave. Shout out to Michael Schwartz, who captures the zeitgeist of the moment very well. And with that, peace and love, everybody. See you next time. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.