By Fen Osler Hampson

March 2, 2026

Mark Carney may have thought he dodged a bullet when he wordsmithed Canada’s position on the latest U.S.‑Israeli assault on Iran, Operation Epic Fury.

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” Carney said in a written statement released jointly with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand on Saturday.

He then repeated those words during an in-person statement in Mumbai, adding pointedly: “We have not been party to the military buildup to this or the military planning of this, so it is not envisioned that we would be part of it.”

That was the easy part. Carney has already drawn the ire of one of his severest Liberal critics, former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who accused the prime minister of failing to condemn “aggressive and unlawful” U.S. actions and ducking a full‑throated defence of international law.

Clearly, Carney now cares less about domestic fallout than trying to stay on Donald Trump’s good side to protect CUSMA.

The hard part will come if the war drags on, casualties mount, and Trump leans on allies, including Canada, for tangible military support. If Canada’s new economic partners in the Gulf, Qatar and the UAE also join the fray because of Iran’s attacks, they too may insist on Canada’s help.

We have already seen the playbook. Trump called out British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for initially refusing a U.S. request to use Diego Garcia (and RAF Fairford) as a staging point for potential strikes on Iran. That ire will almost certainly be redirected at other allies who choose to stay on the sidelines if the war drags on.

In such a protracted conflict, Carney may have laid a trap for himself. His controversial comments came after a year of escalating tension in Canada‑U.S. relations starting even before Donald Trump’s second inauguration with his tariff threats and capped by Carney’s much‑acclaimed speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he delivered a broadside against great powers that trash what remains of the rules‑based order.

Trump’s response, as reported, was to fume that Carney should “remember” that Canada only “lives” because of the United States.

Trump’s ad hoc war fails the basic tests for Canadian diplomatic and military support.

In Davos, Carney urged the world’s middle powers to band together against great powers that prey upon the weak and leverage interdependence. He argued that the old U.S.‑led rules‑based order is “not coming back” and that middle powers must work in coalitions rather than meekly accommodate hegemons one‑on‑one.

Trump will cherry pick and throw some of Carney’s words back at him if Canada demurs on a future demand to join U.S. operations against Iran. One can almost hear Trump accusing Carney of failing to live up to his own words about standing up to dictators.

More tariffs and other punitive measures would likely follow, as Canadians have learned, when the president is piqued.

It is worth remembering that in the post‑war era Canada has often been an active and engaged military partner in U.S.‑led interventions: the Korean War, the 1991 Gulf War, peace and enforcement missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, and the anti‑ISIL campaign in Iraq and Syria. There were also clear refusals: Vietnam and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Successive Canadian governments have made these calls on the basis of a familiar set of conditions: some form of UN authorization or at least broad international legitimacy, coalition leadership typically anchored in NATO, strong domestic and parliamentary backing, credible evidence of the threat, and manageable risks of military escalation.

None of those conditions is met in the current confrontation with Iran. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has already been heavily damaged by earlier U.S.‑Israeli strikes, including the so‑called “Twelve‑Day War” of 2025.

There is no UN authorizing resolution for the present campaign (Melania Trump was chairing a UN Security Council Meeting on Monday, so it was otherwise occupied) and no realistic prospect of one emerging from the UNSC or the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace procedure, or Resolution 377, passed in 1950 to get around the P5 veto problem in dealing with security threats by creating the emergency special session mechanism and used 11 times since then, including to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Canadians would look aghast at fighting alongside U.S. and Israeli forces in Iran, even under the guise of “non‑combat” naval deployments in the wider Arabian Sea—a role Canada assumed in limited fashion during earlier Gulf crises.

Trump’s ad hoc war fails the basic tests for Canadian diplomatic and military support. He offered no compelling public case for pre‑emptive strikes before the first missiles flew, did little to build a genuinely broad international coalition, and made no serious effort to secure even symbolic UN backing. That is entirely in character for a leader who has weaponized inconsistency, bombast, bullying and impulsive decision‑making to foment chaos.

Carney’s problem, however, if the war grinds on and the worst comes to pass, is that he has already tipped his hat to Trump. By endorsing the stated objective of stopping Iran’s nuclear program while distancing Canada only from the “planning” of the operation, he has narrowed his margin of maneuvre.

Given Canada’s real exposure to Trump’s economic and political tirades, staying out of this war will demand exactly the kind of principled, coalition‑based middle‑power diplomacy Carney described in Davos, this time not in theory but in practice.

Policy Contributing Writer Fen Osler Hampson, FRSC, is the Chancellor’s Professor and Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University, and president of the World Refugee & Migration Council. He is co-chair of the Expert Group on Canada-US Relations.