Foreign policy shift puts Canada at risk of armed attacks | Al Jazeera America.
A drastic shift in Canada’s Middle East policy has put the country “on the map” of international armed groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), analysts say, following two lethal attacks in the span of a week — one of which is said to have been inspired by the group.
“Canada seems to have gone far right” under the administration of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said Roksana Bahramitash, director of research for the Canada Research Chair in Islam, Pluralism and Globalization at the University of Montreal.
The Harper administration’s dramatic stance on Middle Eastern affairs, what analysts call an unprecedented departure with previous governments that focused their diplomacy on aid and peacekeeping missions, “puts Canada in a position it has never been in before,” said Bahramitash.
Since Harper took office in 2006, Ottawa has sent funds to support the opposition in Syria’s ongoing civil war, expressed vocal support for Israel amid the ongoing offensive in Gaza and shuttered diplomatic ties with Iran at a highpoint of tensions between Washington and Tehran over its nuclear program.
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