They look, suddenly, like geniuses: Stephen Harper and John Baird, summarily yanking Canadian diplomats out of Tehran last week and sending Iran's diplomats packing, without so much as a byyour-leave.
This week, with U.S. embassies across the Middle East under siege and Israel in open conflict with the Obama administration over what to do about Iran, Canada's move suddenly seems prescient and cautious, rather than reckless and bellicose. The pity, frankly, is that we can't simply pull all Canadians out of the region and wait until it's over.
There is a tendency - somewhat understandable, given the Harper government's elbows-out, winnertake-all approach - to write Harper's foreign policy off as reflexive, aggressive, shoot-first-ask-questions-later bristling, shot through with an almost manic devotion to Israel.
This fits neatly with the narrative of Harper as a mini George W. Bush, only smarter and without the swagger.
But Harper's track record on foreign policy since 2006 defies the caricature.
It was Harper who, in 2006, declared that Canada wouldn't "cut and run" from Afghanistan. For the next two years, he hewed to that line. But come the election in the fall of 2008, Harper was talking about withdrawal.
That would have been the dominant election issue: He took it off the table. The eventual extension of the mission happened with bipartisan support from the Liberals. Harper clearly is ambivalent now about Afghanistan and its endemically corrupt, incompetent government. So are most of the rest of us.
In effect, he read the public mood as it changed and matched policy to suit it.
With respect to the United States, Harper - as per the caricature - should maintain a slavishly pro-U.S. stance, because the U.S. is Canada's largest trading partner and pre-eminent strategic ally. Instead, while maintaining outward civility, Harper has openly undercut U.S. positions, when doing so appeared to him to be in Canada's interest. Last winter, when U.S. President Barack Obama shelved the Keystone XL pipeline project that would have brought Alberta oil to the Gulf Coast, Harper immediately made economic overtures to China. Astonishingly, Canada and China are now seriously entertaining the prospect of free trade.
Agree or disagree with the gambit, it is strangely comforting to see a Canadian prime minister applying realpolitik in so ruthless a manner, rather than, say, bleating about soft power at the United Nations.
Which brings us full circle to Israel, Iran and the escalating crisis. At this writing, four Americans are dead.
Three U.S. embassies - in Libya, Egypt and Yemen - have been attacked. The Swiss embassy in Iran, deemed a proxy for U.S. interests, is under siege by protesters. Canada's former embassy in Iran is, of course, shuttered. The Canadian embassy in Cairo was closed Thursday as a precautionary measure. Two U.S. destroyers are headed for the Libyan coast.
There is no reason to suppose that Baird knew or had reason to believe any of this would occur now. More plausible is that he or his office got wind, either from contacts in Israel or in Washington, that long-simmering tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration, over how and when to deal with Iran, were about to burst into the open.
Setting aside predictable tut-tutting from a few retired diplomats, there was no political downside for the Tories in cutting off relations with Iran: The Liberal party's pre-eminent human-rights thinker, MP Irwin Cotler, has strongly supported the move and NDP leader Tom Mulcair has long been his party's most staunchly pro-Israel voice. Whatever criticism the opposition did muster was going to be muted.
In that light, the severing of ties was a precautionary measure that also sent a clear message, to Israel and Washington and of course Tehran, of Canada's posture: squarely behind Israel, in a last-ditch international attempt to bully or bribe the Iranian leadership into backing down. Should they not back down, war is highly likely. Therefore, an overtly tough posture now is an effort to preserve peace.
It's not a difficult position to defend, morally. And, in light of events of the past few days, it was well timed.
