Written By David Gomez
War casts a long, filthy shadow over the world. It stains everything it touches: bodies, nations, memory, truth. It has done so for centuries, and yet each new war still arrives wrapped in the same old language of necessity, security, and righteousness. We are told that violence is regrettable but required, that bombs are unfortunate but justified, that civilian fear is the price of order. And still the graveyards grow.
What has changed in our time is not the nature of war, but the speed of our witnessing. We now watch destruction unfold live, almost clinically, as if horror had become just another stream to refresh. We see Ukraine bleeding under Russian aggression. We see Palestinians buried beneath the weight of collective punishment and devastation. We see the old imperial reflexes of stronger countries intruding into the affairs of weaker ones, whether through invasion, coercion, or political engineering. Everything is immediate. Everything is visible. Everything invites reaction. That visibility does not guarantee justice, but it does impose a duty: to think clearly, to speak honestly, and to refuse the comfortable lies that always gather around war and violence.
That is why Canada’s refusal to directly join the war between the USA, Iran and Israel matters. PM Mark Carney clarified in Parliament that Canada would not participate militarily in the conflict, and that line deserves support. At a moment when too many governments confuse loyalty with obedience, refusing to be dragged into another reckless escalation is not weakness. It is the bare minimum of sanity.
But if Canada is to stay out of the fighting, it should also stay out of the moral fog that allows such wars to begin. The central claim used to justify Donald Trump’s attack on Iran is that Iran represented an imminent threat. That claim has been deeply shaken by the resignation of Joe Kent, Trump’s own counterterrorism chief, who said he could not support the war in good conscience because Iran was not an imminent threat to the United States. This is not a criticism coming from some predictable ideological rival. Kent is a former U.S. military officer, a Republican, a MAGA-aligned official appointed by Trump himself. When even a loyal insider walks away on those grounds, the administration’s case begins to look less like strategy and more like fabrication.
And do not misunderstand me: wishing for peace does not mean defending oppression. I want Iran to be free. I want the suffocating rule of the Ayatollahs to crumble under the weight of its own injustice. I want Iranian women to live without fear, to choose their lives, their voices, their futures without coercion or punishment. But freedom cannot be delivered through bombs dropped from abroad, nor imposed through wars built on shaky claims and political theatre.
Trump governs through spectacle, impulse, and brute-force narrative. He does not persuade; he performs. He does not deliberate; he lunges. His style has always depended on turning reckless behaviour into a badge of masculine certainty. But foreign policy is not a reality show, and war is not one of his rallies. A president cannot simply improvise violence and then expect the world to absorb the fallout.
The deeper obscenity lies in the double standard. We are asked to believe that international law matters, but only when it restrains official enemies. We are asked to believe that pre-emptive force becomes acceptable when exercised by powerful states and their allies, even when the evidence is ambiguous, shifting, or plainly contradicted by insiders. We are asked to accept that one country’s bombing campaign is “self-defence” while another country’s retaliation is proof of its barbarism. This moral asymmetry poisons public life. It teaches citizens that legality is flexible, truth is optional, and violence is noble when committed by the right side.
Trump thrives in exactly that poisoned climate. He has always understood that confusion protects power. If the public is overwhelmed by competing claims, dramatic language, and permanent outrage, then accountability weakens. But this war is too serious for that game. It threatens not only lives in the Middle East, but also global stability, energy security, inflation, and the fragile idea that law should restrain force.
Reuters reports that the conflict has already intensified fears around the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply moves. That is not some distant regional detail. It is the kind of escalation that can spill into households far from the battlefield through fuel prices, food costs, and economic anxiety.
There is also a deeper political betrayal here. Trump long sold himself as the leader who would not drag America into new wars. That promise helped define his appeal. Now even parts of the MAGA world are fracturing under the weight of this contradiction, with some of his own supporters questioning whether this war serves American interests at all.
Canada and the other allies (primarily NATO members) must remain firmly neutral in this conflict. Moreover, they must speak out with moral clarity. Neutrality is prudent. Rejecting the logic behind this war is a matter of principle. And in a world repeatedly threatened by leaders intoxicated by force, principles are no small matter.
