Canada may yet have to send troops to Iraq in order to stop the terrorist threat of ISIS, says St. Albert's member of Parliament.
The House of Commons voted 157-134 this week in support of a Conservative motion to send fighter jets to Iraq to perform air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (a.k.a. the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS). The motion explicitly ruled out sending ground troops.
ISIS is a terrorist movement that arose out of the ongoing Syrian civil war that seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, explained Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies with the Royal Military College of Canada. They are heavily armed and have seized control of parts of Iraq.
The group has gathered international concern in recent months for its brutal attacks on civilians, including televised beheadings of foreign nationals. About 1.8 million people have been forced to flee the region as a result, reports the federal government.
Federal foreign affairs minister John Baird told the House that Canada would send six CF-18 fighters to the region for six months, as well as a refuelling plane, two surveillance planes and 600 support crew members.
Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber was one of the few non-Conservative MPs to vote in favour of the motion – a vote he says he cast with great reluctance.
"It was a very agonizing decision, certainly the toughest one I've had to make as an independent," he said Thursday.
While ISIS was one of the most dangerous and sadistic groups the world has ever seen, sending jets to attack them meant putting Canadian troops at risk soon after the end of a long and costly campaign in Afghanistan.
"There were no good choices here."
Rathgeber acknowledged that his vote was symbolic, as the motion would have passed without him due to the Conservatives' majority. Still, he felt it was important to show that the motion had at least some non-Conservative support in order to show Canada's troops that their government was behind them.
Rathgeber voted against NDP amendments that would have had Canada stay out of combat operations and stick to humanitarian aid. ISIS was beheading aid workers, and it was too dangerous to send aid workers to the country, he said.
"The country needs to be stabilized first, and that means destabilizing the ISIS forces."
Rathgeber said he would not have supported the government had its motion allowed for ground troops.
Next steps
Dorn said it would be a bad idea to send in ground troops today, as they would likely be seen as occupiers. Still, military action was needed to deter further atrocities by ISIS.
Dorn said Canada could have instead sent more special-forces operatives to Iraq to train soldiers there to combat ISIS – it already has about 30 on the ground. It also needs to do more to support reconstruction and reconciliation in Iraq.
"You can't do the war-fighting without finding the means to peacekeeping, and they have ignored the peacekeeping component."
Dorn called for a "Marshall Plan" for Iraq where the world would send the nation as much money for reconstruction and institution-building as it now gets for war-fighting, instead of about 10 times less. This would win the hearts and minds of local residents and convince them there was an alternative to war.
Canada now has to get humanitarian aid to the millions displaced by ISIS and fast-track their refugee claims, Rathgeber said.
Rathgeber acknowledged that ground troops may be required if Canada really wants to stop ISIS.
"At some point you're going to have to follow (air strikes) up with tanks and infantry," he said, which means Canada will have a tough choice six months from now when this current deployment ends.
"As difficult as this decision was to make, that decision will be even more difficult and more conflicting given our experience in Afghanistan."
