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The Current Transcript for September 17, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There were multiple individuals armed with semi-automatic weapons and there is a lot of lines that have been fired in this complex area.

LAURA LYNCH: Chief Chris McCord of Peel Regional Police detailing yet another shooting over the weekend. In Mississauga a 17-year-old was killed and others including a 13 year old girl were injured. It's renewing calls for stronger steps to halt gun violence there and across Canada. So we've brought together a panel of federal candidates to talk about solutions. That's where we're starting today. After that.

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VOICE: I think the exciting part of a green new deal is that w're saying nobody should have to choose between the end of the month and the end of the world. We actually all care about both. So why don't we design policies that doesn't force people to choose.

LL: Naomi Klein says the house is on fire and the way to put it out to actually face climate change is to create new sustainable industries to ensure jobs and pay, even as traditional energy companies go out of business. All this as Saudi Arabia claims Iran was behind attacks on its oil installations, rising tensions and the U.S. response in an hour. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

Handgun bans, social programs, more police powers: Three candidates on what they'd do to fight gun violence

Guests: Bill Blair, Andrew Cash, Tom Dingwall

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VOICE 1: Our thoughts go out today to all the victims and the families of the terrible shooting in Mississauga.

VOICE 2: Send my best wishes and sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families. It's a very shocking tragedy that.

VOICE 3: So we've seen that a horrible price that weapons that are designed to kill humans have seen.

LL: Now during an election campaign news stories can become election issues. This past weekend it was guns and gun control after a teenager described as an innocent bystander was killed and five others were injured in a shooting in Mississauga, Ontario. Police believe at least seven suspects fired semi-automatic handguns indiscriminately outside an apartment complex. Three federal candidates join me to discuss what their party would do to prevent those kinds of tragedies. Bill Blair is the Liberal candidate for Scarborough-Southwest. Andrew Cash is the NDP candidate for Davenport. And Tom Dingwall is the conservative candidate for the federal riding of Ajax. He's currently on leave from the Durham Regional Police Service while he campaigns. And all three of them have joined me in studio. Hello to you all.

BILL BLAIR: Hello.

ANDREW CASH: Good morning.

TOM DINGWALL: Good morning.

LL: Bill Blair let's start with you. What was your reaction when you heard about this weekend's fatal shooting in Mississauga?

BILL BLAIR: The violence in our communities is completely unacceptable and it demands the best action from all of us. I've been dealing with gun violence in the city of Toronto for several decades. And and those types of incidents can have an impact on people's sense of safety and security. And I think we need we need to make sure that the police have the resources they need to respond appropriately to apprehend the offenders and the criminal justice system will deal with them. But we've also got to look at prevention. And I know from experience there are a number of very significant things that can and must be done in our communities to reduce and suppress the incidents of violence and also to change the circumstances in our communities that's giving rise to that violence in the first place. And that means helping young people make better choices and strengthening the resilience of communities and so that's our plan quite frankly.

LL: We will get into that in more detail. But Tom Dingwall I want to turn to you. You've seen this firsthand as a police officer. Could something like this actually have been prevented?

TOM DINGWALL: It's very difficult to say whether this particular incident could be prevented. I think we have to take appropriate steps to try and ensure that these these incidents don't happen on every hour sorry in every occasion. The part of the problem that I see is in your opening statement that these shootings have become a political issue for this campaign. This should be an issue every day for four Canadians gang and gun violence. Don't only occur in an election year and we should have been taking appropriate steps over the last four years or even prior to that to ensure that we have the tools and the resources and in the hands of police so that we have a fighting chance to prevent these things from happening.

LL: Alright Andrew Cash, Toronto has also seen a wave of violent gun incidents over this past year. In your Toronto constituency what are people saying about it as you're campaigning?

ANDREW CASH: Well as a matter of fact the other day I knocked on the door of a woman who's who's raising a 12-year-old and she's you know got two jobs as a personal support worker the first thing out of her mouth was I am really concerned about the guns and I am really concerned because my kid has no programs nothing that he can get into. You know even the music programs that are in our public education system have been cut. So even for something like that she would have to you know pay 40 or 50 bucks a month for money that she doesn't have. You know that's just an example of of the problem writ large. And I know my conservative friend here it's tough when he says about tools that we need to do. You know he's not talking about long term systemic fixes of poverty, of social exclusion of racism in our community. And okay.

LL: But I understand what you're saying about getting at the roots, but there are other perhaps more immediate measures that people are calling for. And Bill Blair I want to turn to you because according to Statistics Canada, 57 percent of permanent homicides involving a firearm is carried out with a handgun. And we know that mayors including John Tory of Toronto are calling for a handgun ban. Will the Liberals introduce them?

BILL BLAIR: The Liberals have been talking to Canadians and and certainly I've had many conversations with Mayor Tory. Within the city of Toronto we're prepared to take the steps that are necessary to make it more difficult for criminals to get their hands on firearms particularly handguns to make sure that that handguns are first well difficult to get that those who do acquire them use them illegally are far more likely to get caught with little consequences.

LL: Are we talking about a handgun ban?

BILL BLAIR: We're talking about restrictions on on on firearms which will make them far more difficult for criminals to gain access to. And let me just give you some examples. One of the things that we are seeing is quite a number of use of handguns are getting into the hands of criminals as a result of theft. They're being stolen from retailers across the country and from private homes. And so the storage of those weapons is is absolutely critical to make sure that they're more difficult to steal. And yet our current laws do not provide for our homeowners with enough information about what they need to do.

LL: I don't do a handgun ban in there anywhere else.

BILL BLAIR: But I think what you're hearing is we are looking at all the measures which will be effective in keeping our communities safe and making it far more difficult for criminals to gain access to guns now and that can include by the way, within the city, Mayor Tory and I've been discussing this, additional restrictions on where a firearm can be possessed or stored within a municipality to make it far more difficult for people in those municipalities to gain access criminally to guns.

LL: Tom Dingwall, the Conservatives say a ban on handguns would be ineffective. How come?

TOM DINGWALL: Well know what you've just heard is a way of dancing around the issue.

LL: Well would you, would the Conservatives support a handgun ban?

TOM DINGWALL: Absolutely not. And I can tell you why a handgun ban is it is simply a way of not addressing the real issue here. The real issue is illegal guns coming across the border. It's gang violence. It's violent crime and it's inability of our current government to address those issues. We know that having a handgun ban will not prevent guns from coming across the border. These people are already breaking the law. So to say that we're going to prohibit guns from being in Toronto, it's already illegal for anyone to carry a handgun.

LL: But why not take a step that can get some of them off the streets with a ban? What's the problem with doing that?

TOM DINGWALL: Because it isn't the legal gun owners that are are walking down the streets of Toronto shooting people. These are, it's a distraction technique in saying that. It's an attempt to make people feel safe, but in reality a handgun ban will not make people safe. Criminals do not have borders. If you say we can't have handguns in Toronto, what about Peel? What about York? Do you think that they can't simply go to Peel or York and find a handgun, if they want to, or cross the border and buy one?

LL: Well Andrew Cash, he raises the possibility Tom Dingwall of guns coming across the border. How would the NDP address that?

ANDREW CASH: Yeah. Well well first of all you know we need to pause for a moment and just you know acknowledge that the Liberals had a majority government for four years and they have done virtually nothing. They brought in some modest gun proposal, but their own you know vice chair of their Federal Firearms Advisory, Natalie Provos quit because of the inaction of this government. And you know what they've done? They've held on to everything to make it an election issue. They're playing you know partisan games.

LL: But what I was asking you what the NDP would do to stop the illegal flow of guns across the border?

ANDREW CASH: Well first of all you know the government has allocated a billion dollars in their last budget for border security. That wasn't for gun control. That was for the supposed refugee crisis. We need to really enable our CBSA officers at those borders with the best and you know the best resources to stem the flow of illegal firearms that have come.

LL: With more money? More officers? Is that what you're talking about?

ANDREW CASH: Better technology, more officers. Whatever we need to flow to stem the flow. That is a true security issue for Canada. You know I want to, I don't think we need guns in our cities. And I don't really understand what my Conservative friend is talking about. He, I don't see them having a solution. We've got to get to those root causes. The government, the police have initiated a plan, $4.5 million, they initiated it this summer with help from the federal government. 11 week program. 11 week program. That's the second one in a row.

LL: Yeah but Bill Blair I just want to have you respond to this idea of stopping the flow of guns at the border.

BILL BLAIR: Well I would I would just simply point out in twenty thirteen The. Conservative government took one point two billion dollars out of our federal security services including nearly 400 million dollars over the CBSA. We've been putting that money back and we've been putting those resources back at the border. Contrary to to Andrew's assertions eighty nine billion dollars was dedicated specifically to CBSA and the RCMP to deal with firearms coming across our border and what's the result. It has been significant CBSA has seized several hundred firearms at the border this year.

LL: What percentage do you think that is of the arms that are actually getting in?

BILL BLAIR: Well it it's difficult to determine but what is important is they're not simply doing the goal line defence. They're certainly doing an excellent job at our border and we've provided them with new technologies including x rays Technologies a significant increase in dogs because that low tech response is also quite effective. Additional people and in addition conditional potential intelligence gathering. But we've also given money but who can restore the RCMP whose capacity to conduct criminal investigations into the criminal organizations responsible for bringing those those guns across the border. This is an organized criminal activity and they're motivated by profit. In 2013, the Conservatives cut the funding for the RCMP and they closed all 12 integrated proceeds of crime units across this country. And so when they talk about you know making investments, I would just simply remind them that we put $214 million into municipal and Indigenous police service to deal with gun and gang violence in the city just a few weeks ago and made the announcement with the Ontario government of $65 million for police services in this country.

LL: I have seen those announcements made several times for the gun and gang violence including out in BC where I come from, but I just want to turn it over to Tom Dingwall to ask you what would you see doing at the border to stop this?

TOM DINGWALL: Well first and foremost I think what Mr. Blair just said is quite telling, that the money was just released a few weeks ago. They've been in power for for quite some time. This is not a new issue. And as I said at the beginning of the show to say that this is an election issue. This has been an issue for a long time. And you know we have three hundred and twenty seven million promised by this Government promising money for funding and border security and things like that is not delivering on conservatives. We would deliver on it. We would we would. Does that mean that means provide the funding not just promises but provide it to make sure that we have adequate intelligence to provide it to our police agencies so that they can be proactive in investigating and preventing crime rather than being very good report takers which we have right now. We're showing up after the fact and we're taking reports we're being very ineffective at preventing crime because we are understaffed we are underfunded. And this has been a direct result of the Liberals inaction and in delivering on their promises and delivering the funds to make sure we have the tools necessary to do it.

LL: Andrew Cash you talk about getting at the root causes, but we hear police talking about the fact that they need more funding to do their job properly.

ANDREW CASH: Yeah I know we hear that from police for sure and I understand that. I think we need to listen to the communities that are suffering from this scourge of gun violence and more often than not they are talking about the lack of affordable housing, the lack of access to programming for their youth, the lack of decent jobs. The you know the exclusion, the poverty and frankly the racism that is endemic in our cities. And and we have reports and this is where I just say we have reports already. You know Ray McMurtry and Alvin Curling did a comprehensive report over a decade ago about youth violence and the roots of it. And we know that's where we have to go and we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

LL: Well that's what I was going to ask you.

ANDREW CASH: We can do that.

LL: You can do the community initiatives, but the violence is happening right now.

ANDREW CASH: But the community initiatives often are time limited like the current one. I mean it times out in October 30th or 31st. You know it's the end of the month. We need long term you know focussed systemic change and that is nothing that I've seen happen.

LL: I see Bill Blair wants to jump in.

ANDREW CASH: Of course.

BILL BLAIR: Just let me correct some things, that misinformation that's just been provided. We actually made available for you know 47 billion dollars for anti gang initiatives for for policing and communities right across this country in 2017. We went to the provinces. The money has to be distributed to the municipal police services and to municipalities through the provinces. In the spring I had a meeting with the Ontario government and said here's $65 million, you need to move on this. You need to accept it and begin allocating it to your municiaplities, they accepted it. At that time only $11 million, we've had further discussions with them. They now have all 65 million dollars available to them and I urge municipalities across Ontario and across Canada to reach out to their provincial governments and give get access to the funding that we've provided. I also mentioned a couple of other things. You know we brought forward new firearms legislation that just as an example provides for more enhanced background checks for people who can, who are acquiring firearms. The Conservatives have promised to repeal that and quite frankly I see no sense at all in getting rid of enhanced background checks.

LL: I'm going to ask the Conservatives about that, but I just want to ask you about community initiatives because it's not just about trying to get rid of guns.

BILL BLAIR: And I couldn't agree more. And for example I went to Surrey B.C. and we've been working with the municipality of Surrey. We provided $7.5 million for ten community organizations that work with kids in that community. And their youth workers and social workers working in that community to work with young people to help them make better choices. We've also made significant investments in job creation and housing and providing better services in those communities. And I think Andrew makes an important point as well. I've worked in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Toronto and I've dealt with gun violence. I know from experience that you know you need to conduct investigations and deal with those violent people who represent such a significant threat to society. But if you don't go into communities and deal with issues of social justice within those communities then you're just going to have generation after generation getting into this type of activity.

LL: AndwWhen you mentioned Surrey, it's obviously a place I'm very familiar with because I'm from out there and I've learned about the anti-gang initiatives, but these shootings are still happening.

BILL BLAIR: Yes maam and so we need to make sure that the police have the resources. I can tell you again, I was police chief in Toronto for 10 years and during that 10 years we never got a nickel from the Harper government to deal with gun and gang violence. Nothing. And so as soon as we formed a government, we went to the police services, first of all, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, but I went and met with police chiefs right across the country and said what do you need? And they said we don't just need policing resources, we need investments in our community. We need to work with kids.

LL: Tom Dingwall, you are talking your party about repealing certain measures that the Liberals took. What what else are you going to do to actually help?

TOM DINGWALL: Just give me two seconds to respond to my NDP friend here. He's spoken on behalf of the Conservatives saying that we don't support initiatives to work with our communities and provide programs. That's absolutely false. We just believe that before we provide those investments in our community, we want to make sure that our kids aren't being shot when they're on their way to those programs and those initiatives. So we are absolutely and supportive of programs that will work to prevent and keep children and kids from going into that lifestyle. But we need to make sure they're not getting killed before that happens. And right now we have a shooting problem we have a gang problem we have a violent crime problem and that's the that's the urgency I repeat. Background checks we're not repealing background checks and this is this is what really bothers me about this whole issue. If we're being serious about talking about gang and gun violence, we shouldn't be talking about Bill C71.

LL: What should we be talking about?

TOM DINGWALL: Because Bill C 71 does not talk.

LL: What should we be talking about then?

TOM DINGWALL: OK. We should be talking about the gang violence. We should be talking about drugs and we should be talking about illegal guns.

LL: And what would the Conservatives do about gang violence?

TOM DINGWALL: Well as I said we are going to ensure that we properly fund the police services, the intelligence services and the border services. That has not happened under a Liberal government. And I'll just say that Mr. Blair talked about not getting funding while he was a chief of police. I've been a police officer in Durham for 27 years. I've worked in homicide for a long time. Ajax had one of the worst years of shootings, Ajax and Pickering last year. We have the Liberal whip who I'm running against and we haven't received a dime in Durham Region to address gang and gun problems in our region. Toronto is not the only problem or area of Ontario that is deserving of funding, but yet all surrounding areas are not getting funding. So we need to address that as well.

LL: Bill Blair?

BILL BLAIR: That's just the politics of resentment. The fact is we provided $65 million to the province of Ontario and it's precisely because the province of Ontario has that relationship of oversight.

LL: Is that going to Durham? I understand it's the province whos' spending it.

BILL BLAIR: All that needs to happen is that the police service and the municipality of Durham have to reach out to the province of Ontario and to get them moving on moving these allocation of funds. We've made the money available but it has to be done through the provinces and territories. We've also made significant investments in communities right across this country. It's not just limited to the big cities. We recognize that every community's got concerns about violence and gun violence.

LL: And that it's kind of where I wanted to turn to next. There are a lot, there is a lot of guy violence in rural areas. Andrew Cash I know that's not exactly your area because you're in the city, but what measures would the NDP take to deal with the fact that firearm related homicide rates is 16 percent higher in rural areas, usually involving legally owned rifles.

ANDREW CASH: Well yeah there is that fact, but there's also the fact that in Ontario and British Columbia and in Quebec the incidents of homicides by gun violence are more prevalent in urban areas. In Ontario it's twice the rate in urban areas than it is in rural areas. We have a massive issue here in our cities, in our big cities that we need to deal with and we need to deal with it. I support Ford's call for a ban here. And I think that we have to get serious. We're dancing around the issue.

BILL BLAIR: I think you meant Mr. Tory by the way.

ANDREW CASH: I'm sorry. I did. Thank you for clarifying that.

LL: We have about 45 seconds left here.

ANDREW CASH: I think we're dancing around the issue. We need to get at the root causes of this and we need long term systemic funding.

LL: Alright. Thirty seconds last word to you Mr. Dingwall.

TOM DINGWALL: Thank you Bill C71 is not a bill that that makes us more safe. Bill C71 regulates.

LL: It is law now. It's not just a bill anymore.

TOM DINGWALL: We're sorry. It regulates legal gun owners. It does nothing to prevent gang and gun violence and people that are in possession of illegal firearms, does absolutely nothing. We need to focus on the real problem, which is violent crime and the fact that we need tougher penalties, we need tougher bail conditions and we need proper funding.

LL: Gentlemen I thank you all three for coming in and discussing the issue with us. I have a feeling it'll come up again during the campaign.

TOM DINGWALL: Thank you.

ANDREW CASH: Thanks.

BILL BLAIR: Thank you.

LL: Bill Blair is the Liberal candidate for Scarborough-Southwest. Andrew Cash is the NDP candidate for Davenport and Tom Dingwall is a Conservative candidate for the federal riding of Ajax. All three of them were here with me in the studio. The CBC News is next. Then from migrants turned away at closed borders to hurricane survivors sent home.

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VOICE: I call this climate barbarism and I think we are at a fork in the road where we have to decide are we going to hoard or are we going to share? What kind of people do we want to be in the world that we have created?

LL: Author and activist Naomi Klein makes the case for the Green New Deal after the news. I'm Laura Lynch. You're listening to The Current.

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'A transformational vision for the next economy': Naomi Klein on the Green New Deal

Guests: Naomi Klein

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

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LL: Still to come, oil facilities in Saudi Arabia were hit by a drone strike over the weekend sending the price of crude and tensions soaring. We'll examine who is behind the attack and why that matters in half an hour. But first a call for change in the face of a climate crisis.

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VOICE: We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint is the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.

LL: The now recognizable voice of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist. She's talking to the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland, world leaders, CEOs and central bankers.

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VOICE: Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope, but I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act. I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.

LL: That urgency is echoed in Naomi Klein's new book, it's called On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. Naomi Klein has been writing and speaking out for years about the need for radical change to our economy and society change she believes is the only way to stave off a climate catastrophe. Naomi Klein is with me from Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she's the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist studies. Hello.

NAOMI KLEIN: Hi.

LL: Do you live with that kind of fear every day too?

NAOMI KLEIN: Oh yeah. It gets me a few times a day because I'm so immersed in the science and I see you know my filter bubble in the news is is heavily weighted towards towards climate facts. And it's a very fast moving crisis even though we think we've trained our brains to think that climate change is something that happens slowly. It's it's really striking me lately how very rapidly it is. It is unfolding what's happened that it has been striking you lately. Well the Amazon which is you know it's not climate change itself that it's causing those fires it's it's government policy and arson really. But the forest is is dry and that helps it spread and and the loss of those trees is going to make this crisis so much worse the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic the loss of huge parts of the Great Barrier Reef. These are the major features of our planet and we are losing them. Know for this book I went over a decade of writing and it really struck me honestly how much has been lost in just one short decade.

LL: Do you think though that most people feel that fear because we're not seeing that radical urgent action that you're calling for.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well we aren't seeing it from our politicians but I think a lot more a lot more people are feeling it. You know I hear from young people all the time who are who tell me that they feel like they can't have kids who feel terribly depressed and I think this is one of the reasons why Gretta has hurt why her voice has resonated so much among young people has been her amazing courage and honesty in talking openly about the impact of climate breakdown and extinction on her mental health. She's talked openly about a period where she wouldn't eat or speak. And I think that in our day to day lives it's just confusing because we get. We read these article about an insect apocalypse or a huge glacier melting in Antarctica walruses falling to their death and then we're on to you know who's doing what on Instagram and we look and we see our political leaders talking about pretty much everything else or saying it's an emergency and then buying pipelines. And so I think one can feel very isolated in our sense of emergency and I think what's really changed over this past year is people are finding each other particularly young people in the youth climate strike movement, but also with with extinction rebellion.

LL: Well that was what I was going to ask you because Greta Thunberg has galvanized a lot of young environmentalists, but how much influence do you think they'll actually have on the adults who are in charge?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well look we are already seeing an incredible shift and a lot of this is is led by young activists and also young politicians. I'm speaking to you from the U.S. with apologies. I will be back to Canada soon but when I think about how much has changed in the one year that I've been living in the U.S. since the Democrats won back Congress and immediately the youth climate movement wasted no time congratulating the Democrats on their midterm victory. Instead they occupied the office of Nancy Pelosi holding signs demanding a Green New Deal. Alexandria Castillo Cortez who is just a few years older than some of them comes and joins them. She had to leave another one of the members of the so-called squad you know is bringing them snacks to keep them going in the protest. And within a few short months almost every candidate who's vying to lead the Democratic Party is at least claiming that they support a Green New Deal which is a transformative approach to the climate crisis as it is not a single carbon tax or cap and trade the way we talk about it in Canada. It is a vision of a transformational vision for the next economy that is is about battling inequality on every level racism gender exclusion and battling against poverty while we lower emissions in line with science.

LL: OK. Let's talk some more about the Green New Deal. What changes under the plan?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well as Greta said, almost everything has to change. That really is a framework for a new industrial policy. It is about changing how we live in cities it's housing policy. It is a jobs program to create millions of unionized jobs. One of the things that I like to highlight is that it isn't only the work putting up solar panels making buildings more efficient that are low carbon although those are low carbon green jobs. It's also work that's overwhelmingly done by women that is teaching kids caring for the sick. Jobs that really improve our quality of life when those workers are well compensated and we should recognize those workers as low carbon workers. So this is modelled after FDR as original New Deal which was a new kind of economy that put social welfare at the centre. Many people were excluded from that vision. African-American workers were discriminated against so were domestic workers agricultural workers. And so a big part of the Green New Deal is about not repeating the errors of the original New Deal while taking the ambition of that original program onboard and saying we need to fight climate change and economic insecurity and inequality at the same time.

LL: Because you say they're all part of the same thing.

NAOMI KLEIN: They're all part of the same thing, but also I think what we have seen is that a very narrow approach to climate change that is just about a sort of a market mechanism like a carbon tax. These policies have come to be associated with increasing the cost of living for working people. There's been a fundamental unfairness or at least a perceived unfairness in how climate policies have rolled out because workers are seeing that the very wealthy are not having their profits reined in or their salaries reined in. And so it's the people who are already carrying a very heavy burden who are being asked to carry an even heavier one. And so I think the really exciting part about a Green New Deal approach is that it's actually even though it's often dismissed as being unserious because it's so ambitious I think it's precisely because it marries economic policy with those sort of bread and butter economic issues that makes it more pragmatic. You know in France the yellow vest movement they're iconic slogan is you care about the end of the world we care about the end of the month directed towards Emanuel Emmanuel that call who they call the president of the 1 percent. So I think the exciting part of a Green New Deal is that we are saying well nobody should have to choose between the end of the month and the end of the world. We actually all care about both. So why don't we design policies that doesn't force people to choose.

LL: Let's talk about one aspect of the Green New Deal that is sure and already faced some real resistance in Canada. What happens to Canada's energy industry which is obviously one of this country's main economic drivers?

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. Well in the American New Deal program it explicitly says that workers who are transitioning from high carbon sectors to low carbon sectors are guaranteed a job in these new sectors. At the same salary level and benefit level as they had before in Alberta there's a huge amount of work to be done just cleaning up thousands upon thousands of abandoned oil wells. And you actually don't need that much retraining to clean them up. The problem we have is that the oil companies have skipped town and are trying to ditch the public with the bill for this. You know I think that there have been really big policy errors in Canada to let oil and gas companies cry poor when they are some of the wealthiest interests in the world to not increase their royalties to not increase their taxes and to not force them to clean up their mess. If those choices were not made we would have the energy to create jobs in the clean up and pay for the training so that Alberta energy workers can continue to be energy workers but now working in solar and geothermal in wind. In fact Alberta has the best natural conditions for renewable energy than any other province.

LL: But let me make sure we're understanding this. You're basically calling governments to strip oil and gas companies of profits to pay for the climate emergency and then make it nearly impossible for them to conduct their business by cutting their subsidies. Is that right? Am I stating that correctly?

NAOMI KLEIN: These companies I believe are responsible for crimes against humanity. They knew about the climate crisis back in the 1970s. This is irrefutable now which is why there are multiple lawsuits including lawsuits from states against Exxon Mobil. Our now Exxon for suppressing information they did some cutting edge climate research. They knew this was coming. And I believe that we should be treating oil companies the way we started to treat tobacco companies who knew well the links between smoking and cancer and yet spread disinformation and we lost decades and we lost lives.

LL: And yet tobacco companies are still selling their cigarettes. Are you calling for the oil and gas industry to essentially be shut down?

NAOMI KLEIN: I think the oil and gas industry needs to be phased out in its current form. I think there needs to be a managed transition. They have made some very bad choices in understanding the science and yet not shifting their business model to renewables and low carbon energy. That choice was theirs. I think there's many different ways to approach this it doesn't mean that every single one of them goes out of business but I absolutely believe that fairness has to govern our response to climate change. I think a huge part of the reason why there is kind of you know kind of populist backlash against climate action in Canada right now is because of a of a perceived unfairness in it in the way climate policies roll out. People see that they are getting stuck with the bill and if we look at historical analogies you know that during World War 2 in Canada people made some serious sacrifices for the war effort but it was incredibly important that there was a perception of fairness at the centre of it that it wasn't just working people that it was also corporations that they were also making sacrifices that it was also the wealthy and that has there has never been fairness centred in our approach to climate change and I believe it's why we've lost so much time and why we've lost so much life on this planet.

LL: So let's carry on with with how this starts to look in the real world, in Canada. If essentially oil and gas is at least sharply reduced, if not entirely shut down, where does the energy come from for our lives?

NAOMI KLEIN: It comes from 100 percent renewable energy. You know I think it is a tragedy that there was an NDP government in Alberta and that coming to the end of the Liberals first term in office. We have spent so much time fighting about pipelines and so little time imagining what a renewables based economy could look like and who could benefit which isn't to say that there hasn't there haven't been any renewable projects rolled out there have. But we are stalled at the fossil fuel stage and people aren't seeing the kind of benefits the kind of jobs that they could be getting if we designed this transition right. So we know from the best research on this out of Stanford University Mark Jacobson's research that we absolutely the entire world can be running on renewable energy with existing technologies. It's a tough transition there is no doubt but it's actually the most powerful job creator that we could ever imagine. And who pays for the shift to renewables. I think we have to have a polluter pays framework. We have a huge problem. We live in a time of unprecedented private wealth and our governments are broke or at least crying broke. And that has to do with tax havens and tax dodging it has to do with lowering the corporate tax rate. I mean look I I've been saying for a long time that climate change changes everything.

LL: I bet a lot of people who are listening to you right now would say that you're completely out of touch or worse. I mean for example the top two selling vehicles in Canada last year were both full sized pickup trucks. What do you say to them?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well I think we don't have the right incentives in place if that's what's happening. You know frankly the polling that has been done on a approach to the climate crisis that unites what we need to do. Scientists are telling us we need to do with an ambitious jobs program that puts justice justice for indigenous people justice for racialized communities who have had dirty facilities in their backyards and whose kids have higher rates of asthma or other respiratory illnesses. These are actually popular ideas. It's incredibly popular even in the United States which is a very capitalist country which is why so many of the candidates vying to lead the Democratic Party are out trying to outdo each other with how many trillions they're willing to spend on this. You think people think I'm out of touch. I'm I'm not sure that it's not the reverse that actually people have been waiting for a hopeful vision a way of approaching a crisis that I believe every Canadian on some level really does care about we all care about clean air and clean water and safe futures. But we have had policies that have severed the need to protect our natural environment with the need to have good jobs and a decent standard of living and services that actually serve our communities. And I think the kind of ambition that the Green New Deal represents is actually you know it's not just about political policy. I think it's about finding common purpose again which is something that in these times when we are so politically fractured it's something people respond to. Very powerfully when it's put in front of them.

LL: Now we're in a federal election campaign. I'm wondering, you are Canadian obviously, even though you're in the States. Which party do you think has the best plan for tackling climate change?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well I think that the the NDP and the Greens have both put out pretty good plans. There's parts of the NDP plan that I think is better than the Greens and vice versa. The truth is though that of the three top political parties you know I don't think that we have seen enough ambition on this issue. So I think to me as I watch what's happening in the Canadian election I think it's almost less about the political party than it is about electing climate champions. And and let's watch what they do once they are in office. Maybe they'll have the kind of impact that Alexander Castillo Cortez has had.

LL: I want to ask you. You supported the NDP in the past. This time around, you're not.

NAOMI KLEIN: I'm supporting individual NDP candidates, but I'm not involved in supporting a particular political party. I also by the way think that a minority government is is not a bad outcome. I actually think would be very interesting to see what it would look like to have the Greens NDP and Liberals hashing it out. And I think we might end up with better climate policies than any of them have individually right now.

LL: But why aren't leaders, political and business leaders, not jumping wholeheartedly into the kind of radical urgent action that you're calling for?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well like I said, it depends on the country, it depends on the contacts.

LL: Well let's keep it to a Canadian context.

NAOMI KLEIN: Why aren't they? Well I think they are deep answers to this and more sort of short term answers to it. I think in Canada we are a country that the founding narrative of which had to do with the idea of having endless amounts of nature when European settlers came to Canada they were dizzy with the number of giant trees and the cod that stayed John Cabot boats. I mean you could walk across it. We've all heard these you know these narratives of natural abundance. And I think that idea is so equated with the national narrative in Canada that even among progressive parties like the NDP there hasn't truly been a reckoning with the fact that there are limits. Like yeah in Canada we do have a whole hell of a lot of nature and yet we are indeed hitting the limits of what we can take without limit. And what we can dump without limit into the atmosphere into the oceans. And I think that is perceived as a kind of an existential crisis. And you know you hear this from the Trudeau government you know they say a lot of great things about climate change but they've also said you know no one would find this much oil and leave it in the ground. They've marketed pipelines as you know projects you know of nation building as opposed to what they are which is you know planet destroying. So I think there's something that runs very deep in our you know political class that equates the kind of god given right to deplete the natural world as being what it is to build a nation. And I think we have to have some very frank conversations about that because that narrative is at the heart of the the centuries long genocide against indigenous people in Canada because it has all been about getting Indigenous people off of their land so that we could get to their resources. That is the one of the core findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

LL: That's a really interesting thing you bring up because the Trans Mountain pipeline project, the twinning of the pipelines, you know that there are a number of First Nation groups who support the project, who think that this is the right thing to do.

NAOMI KLEIN: And there are many who do not, who are impacted, you know whose territory the pipeline runs through. I mean what there are you know are individual band councils who have come out in favour of the pipeline. It's not my role to speak for for those bands, but we know that there is not consent across the board from the indigenous nations who are impacted by that massive pipeline expansion. You know I don't think that what we have is in any way in the spirit of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people, that says that there has to be free prior and informed consent. Not that you have to find you know a few bands that will tell you what you want to hear.

LL: Do you think citizens of the developed world are ready for the kind of wealth redistribution that would come with this kind of climate action?

NAOMI KLEIN: I think that we are at a crossroads right now where we are really seeing two different possible ways of responding to the reality that climate change is not a future threat. We are already in it and faced with the fact that a lot of people are going to have to move. There's really two possible responses. One is to really look honestly at the reasons why this happened who is most responsible recognize that every person on this planet has a right to safety and figure out how how are we going to share what is left of resources of habitable land and that means reimagining our borders. It means redistributing wealth so that people in the global south are able to leapfrog over fossil fuels battle poverty and prepare for the climate impacts that are already upon them. Are we gonna do that or are we going to just hoard what is left and Fortress our borders and live with the horror that that really means. I mean what it looks like is what we just saw with families from the Bahamas fleeing a Category 5 hurricane and being turned back from the United States while the president smears them as drug dealers. It looks like thousands of people dying in the Mediterranean even as Matteo Savini formerly Italy's interior minister says you know our ports are closed and criminalizes the people who dare to save lives. This you know I call this climate barbarism and I think we are at a fork in the road where we have to decide are we going to hoard or are we going to share. What kind of people do we want to be in the world that we have created. And it is really about if we're gonna be able to hold onto our humanity or not. So your question you know are Canadians ready. Are Canadians ready to share a little bit. I personally think that there is still a very large constituency of Canadians who are ready to do that. Who do not want to slide into this kind of barbarism that we're seeing on the borders. But once again this crisis doesn't stay static. It gets worse and worse. So right now it is thousands of people being left to drown in the future, it will be millions. So we have a big question to answer and it is not just a political question, it is a spiritual question about what kind of people we want to be.

LL: Naomi Klein I thank you for your time.

NAOMI KLEIN: Thank you so much.

LL: Naomi Klein is the author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal. It's available in bookstores today. And Naomi Klein joined us from Rutgers University in New Jersey where she is the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies. Coming up in our next half hour. Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen are claiming responsibility for attacks on Saudi oil field facilities. Now Saudi Arabia says the weapons were from Iran. We'll find out what that might mean as tensions continue to rise in the region. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music]

Rising Tensions Between Iran and the US

Guests: Farnaz Fassihi, Jonathan Schanzer, Colin Clarke

LL: Hello. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

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VOICE 1: This is one of the most serious foreign policy challenges the president has faced with global consequences and the possibility of a major military conflict with Iran.

VOICE 2: Here is a brand new statement from the president writing on Twitter. Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit.

VOICE 3: It was an attack in the dark in the Saudi Arabian desert. But it's not clear. It has raised the possibility of a U.S. military strike on Iran and possibly will raise your gas prices.

LL: Attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil installations aren't just raising the possibility of hikes in gas prices, they're raising increasing tensions between Iran and the United States. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attacks, but U.S. officials were quick to blame Iran instead. Rick Perry is the U.S. energy secretary.

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VOICE: The United States wholeheartedly condemns Iran's attack on the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we call on other nations to do the same. This behaviour is unacceptable. It's unacceptable and they must be held responsible.

LL: U.S. President Donald Trump first tweeted that the United States is locked and loaded, ready to respond. But yesterday he seemed to back away saying he didn't want war with Iran. In response Iran denies responsibility for the attack and it's rejected any overtures of a meeting with the U.S. president. Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter with The New York Times who covers Iran and she's been following this story. She's in New York City. Hello.

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Hi Laura.

LL: Can you walk us quickly through the events of the weekend?

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Well the event started with a pretty spectacular attack on Saudi's national oil company. By what. Who the rebels who are fighting Saudi Arabia and Yemen for control claimed responsibility. The attacks involved what we know drones Americans and Saudis have said that they might then there may have been missiles as well. And Saudis about about 50 percent of Saudis oil production was disrupted and it led to instability in the global energy market and price of crude oil. Opening Monday morning 10 dollars above which analysts said is the highest spike ever since prices have been recorded and this attention quickly became as it always does in the Middle East. It's about you know this proxy war between Saudi and Iran and Saudi and Iran and the United States. The U.S. pretty quickly blamed Iran for the attacks because Iran has been the Ruthie's patron. It's well documented that Iran's support services they have funded them. They've offered them training and they've U.S. and Saudi claim that they've given them weapons. Iran of course denied any allegations that it was involved. And you know on on Monday it looked like the U.S. may be considering strikes on Iran military strikes on Iran. But but by the end of the day things seem to have has been taking a more step back and de-escalation a tone where Trump said I don't really want to go to war with Iran and we're investigating. It's too soon to tell. Saudis have been very coy in coming out and blaming Iran. They say that they think the weapons originated from Iran but they have stopped short of actually saying that Iran ordered the attacks or that Iran was actually involved. Now the other question in this dynamic is where were the well where were the weapons drones or missiles or whatever it was that attacked Saudi Arabia where was the launching pad?

LL: Right. Because you have to look at where they. Right. That's a key question.

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Right. That's a key question. And it could potentially if it came from Iraq and then that would involve the Iraqi militia probably that are aligned with Iran. So it's taking a more regional component. So we really have to see. Saudi Arabia called for the U.N. to come and investigate what had happened. The Department of Defence and the U.S. that it's willing to aid Saudi Arabia in its investigation and I think everybody is trying to buy time.

LL: There's been already some criticism of the U.S. president for for seeming to say that I'm going to wait for Saudi Arabia to tell me what to do.

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Yes. That tweet that tweet was highly criticized by Mr. Trump's opponents because he said we are ready and loaded, but we're going to wait to see what Saudi Arabia says and then we will sort of proceed according to who they say did this in the past. When did these kind of regional tensions or conflicts happen the U.S. most of all took it took a more measured tone and said well we're going to investigate. We're going to see what happens and then we're going to respond even in the case of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi even when Turkey was saying that Saudi Arabia is involved and it's Prince Mohammad bin Salman its crown prince had ordered it. The U.S. kept saying that. Well we're going to investigate. We're going to wait for our investigation to conclude what really happened. So Mr. Trump sort of you know taking this position that Saudi will dictate or determine a U.S. foreign policy and military policy. It came as a big surprise.

LL: The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompei when President Trump have both been vocal about Iran's possible responsibility is that theory unanimous across the U.S. government and administration?

FARNAZ FASSIHI: And it seems that it's unanimous that Iran had a hand in this. I don't think it's unanimous necessarily how U.S. should respond to this. As you know in a meeting with the National Security Council yesterday, the Department of Defence wanted a sort of de-escalation response. They said that they don't want war with Iran. They watch and we've seen in this administration that its policies toward Iran have sort of fluctuated. There's this maximum pressure campaign of economic sanctions and war is on the table and sending warships to the region. But at the same time at every opportunity Mr. Trump said I would like to meet with the Iranian leaders. I would like to engage with Iranian leaders. This has sort of been the carrot and stick approach. But Department of Defence has been pretty consistent in saying we don't want another war in the region. We particularly don't want war with Iran.

LL: What about Iran though? I'm saying it doesn't want to have a meeting with the president.

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected any possibility of a meeting next week during the U.N. General Assembly. But many people in the government in Iran and some different political factions think that ultimately Iran can't sustain this. What's happening right now with economic sanctions. This is not sustainable for Iran. And they need to at some point sit down with the US. Now some analysts in Iran have been telling telling me as I reported this story that that Iran is taking a dual approach Iran if it was involved or if it had knowledge of this attack. This is in line with its policy to stack up some bargaining chips and take a much harder tone in inciting cities in the region. So if it comes to negotiations with the tramp it doesn't look like it's coming from a position of weakness. It also wants to send this message to the U.S. and to Israel and to the West that if you don't sort out economic sanctions with us if you don't come back to the nuclear deal we can really. And if you attack us things can get really out of hand really quickly and the whole region will be engulfed in the flames of this war.

LL: Alright Farnaz good to talk to you. Thank you.

FARNAZ FASSIHI: Thank you Laura.

LL: Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter with The New York Times and she covers Iran. She was in New York City. To talk more about what could happen next as this volatile situation in the Middle East unfolds, I'm joined by two guests. Jonathan Schanzer is a senior vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, a national security and foreign policy think tank. He's in Washington. And Colin Clarke is a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center and a senior adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He's in Pittsburgh. Hello to you both.

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Hello.

LL: First to you Jonathan. How compelling is the evidence that Iran could be behind these attacks in Saudi Arabia?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Well we haven't actually seen the evidence. What we have is a general direction from from which the projectiles came. We understand that right now the evidence seems to suggest that it came from an Iranian base near Iraq. But there has been a lot of confusion about exactly where they came from and exactly who sent them. Initially the Hutus took responsibility for the attack but now it seems that if that that this may have actually just been sent by Iran directly. But again I think the U.S. still needs to come out and share that evidence with the international community right now it seems to be kind of a close knit conversation with the Saudis as they amass evidence okay.

LL: And as you say the Houthi rebels say that they were behind this in Yemen. But Colin Clarke even if they weren't behind it, the Iranians still support the Houthis, correct?

COLIN CLARKE: Yeah no question. And I think you know most people when he's initially made this claim believe it because of the capabilities that the Iranians have bestowed upon the spot in terms of equipment but also in training many in elite units both Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So that that tacit knowledge transfer is key to being able to pull off a spectacular attack on this level. And that's something that many non-state actors don't enjoy that exteran state support that the Iranians provide.

LL: Right. So just to be clear then do this seems to be quite a sophisticated attack. Do the Houthis have that kind of capability?

COLIN CLARKE: Again I mean they're claiming to have sent some drones. We've seen them send drones that permeated Saudi airspace on numerous occasions. I think what most folks including myself were initially surprised about was the scale of the attack and then maybe the target as well given the distance travelled claim and travelled by the drones. But now we're hearing this other side that it could have been cruise missiles launched from an Iranian base close to Iraq. So right now everyone's kind of trying to sift through the evidence. And as Jonathan mentioned we still haven't seen all that.

LL: I just want you to listen to this perspective from Ali Vaez. He's the head of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The Iranians have increasingly less to lose. They've become increasingly less risk averse. Any retaliation against Iran is more likely than not to prompt an Iranian counterattack against U.S. bases in the region and against the infrastructure of U.S. allies that we've seen are quite vulnerable. This really risks inflaming the entire region.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer what do you think? Does Ali Vaez have a point about Iran having increasingly little to lose?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Well I mean I think it's probably worth noting that Ali Vaez is not a terribly credible voice on all of this. He's been I think identified as something of an apologist for the Iranian regime. I think it is certainly fair to say however that Iran does feel like it's backed into a corner. The U.S. has put a very crippling sanctions on Iran and the the option that we've given them actually is to come to the table. And what was so interesting about the timing of this attack is that the president had just let go of John Bolton who was the most sort of hawkish voice within the administration and they had been getting into a fight about the possibility of offering sanctions relief to the Iranians. So here Trump was letting go of Bolton preparing to offer a lifeline to the Iranians and instead of accepting a gift which I think many would have opposed the Iranians decided to launch an attack instead. So I think they were the ones who really missed an opportunity here. They had at least it looked as if they had an out they had the opportunity for President Rouhani to meet with Trump at least that's what the president was indicating. And now it looks as if they've put themselves on the brink of war.

LL: Colin Clarke what do you say to that? Do you see this as all of a piece that Iran decided to do this after John Bolton left the administration?

COLIN CLARKE: Yeah I've been thinking a lot about the timing and whether that was was deliberate in the sense that as the most notorious Iran departs Iran looks to have conducted provocative action to see how the Trump administration will respond with only an acting national security adviser at a time of transition and arguably turmoil within the inner decision making apparatus of the administration. We wrote about this in May for the reform centre we are a detailed research report titled Iran's playbook. We talked about the Iranians really trying to go right up to that line that they know will trigger a response and try to avoid all out war. But at the same time you know making a number of tactical advancements in this kind of tit for tat with the United States and as we see now with the Saudis.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer with John Bolton gone is the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo the one who's in the driver's seat now on Iran policy?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Well to a certain extent yes I mean but you have to remember that all of Bolton's staff or most of them anyway a few people followed him out when he was dismissed from the White House. But there are still a number of people within the National Security Council that still are I think following through with Bolton's vision for an Iran policy. You also have Brian Hook over at the State Department who's been driving a lot of the sanctions and pushing toward negotiation. But certainly I think that Mike Pompeo is kind of the last man standing among the hawks that had surrounded the president. And so it'll be interesting to see how he responds and really what course of action he recommends at this moment.

LL: OK. So Colin Clarke if that is true that Mike Pompeo is sort of heading up the response, where do you see it going?

COLIN CLARKE: I wish I had an answer for that. I've been trying too hard to predict this back and forth for quite some time and you know going back to the summer where we had the tank tax. It's been, it's been somewhat unpredictable. I mean I'm really kind of waiting to see what the U.S. response will be. I have an idea of what what I think may be happening behind the scenes and that's likely the president being offered a range of responses and if we think back last time with the drone, there was the suppose a military strike that was called off in favour.

LL: That was a U.S. drone that was downed, yes?

COLIN CLARKE: Right. In favour of the cyber attack. And so I would imagine it's the suite of cyber options being currently prepared, but potentially you know something more kinetic as well.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer, what do you think?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: I look I think that the U.S. certainly has been planning for action. I think that there is there are probably a range of options on the table. I do think that it's interesting that the Pentagon we've seen some statements coming out of the Pentagon urging the president to stand down. But I do think that there are a range of options that have always been on the table probably from the moment that the president stepped in. That is the job of the Pentagon. But I think you have to remember also that the president is very mindful of the price of oil. We've already seen a 10 or 12 percent spike which is significant. And if there is a strike in the Middle East it will undoubtedly push the price of oil higher eventually I think it would probably stabilize and drop back down to where it was before or somewhere near there. But one does get the sense that the president is very aware of these prices and what they might do to the economy. So you know the president has been unpredictable on his Iran policy. I think he wants to be tough on the one hand. I think he's thinking about the economy on the other so I guess we'll have to wait and see where he shakes out on this.

LL: I just want to play some more tape for you. This is Pouya Alimagham, a historian of the modern Middle East at MIT.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The United States, the government tends to look at the Middle East as its backyard. We had this discussion always whether it's the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf or those that dispute as to what that water source is called. In reality it's the American Gulf. The dominant power in the region isn't Iran or Turkey or Israel or Saudis, it's the United States. It acts as if it could do whatever it wants. It is the number one supplier of weaponry, it has more bases in the Middle East than any Middle Eastern country. I think it's again it's really hard to predict what the United States does when it thinks that this is its backyard and it could do whatever it wants.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer what do you think of those comments?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Well I think to a certain extent it's true. You have to remember that basically since the Carter administration the U.S. has made it a pillar of its foreign policy to ensure a steady and affordable supply of oil from from the Middle East. And so we have put a premium on the on the Persian Gulf. But I think it's also important to note here I mean we could talk about American hegemony but we also just need to talk about freedom of navigation and ensuring that those who want to sell oil on the market are able to do so and upholding a rules based order that the U.S. has been trying to keep in place for decades now and I think the Iranians are challenging and I think the Iranians are the ones that are disrupting it and certainly trying to take out the the the world's largest producer of of oil or at least the country that sits atop the largest proven reserves doing that is a direct challenge to the global economy and to the rules based order that we tried to protect.

LL: Colin Clarke?

COLIN CLARKE: Yeah I mean I'm teaching a course on U.S. grand strategy now or maybe the fourth or fifth fall semester in a row and so this is something that comes up a lot and I think you know the comments aren't necessarily controversial in their election of the current state of the international order with the U.S. still being the world's top power. And so yes this is a world that the United States inherited through the U.S. Navy as Jonathan pointed out has largely attempted to ensure freedom of navigation no avoid disruptions to the global economy so there's nothing necessarily new there. For me the real question is does it fall upon the United States to respond to attack on such an attack on Saudi Arabia and that's where I have my doubts. The United States wasn't attacked. Saudi Arabia is not a treaty ally. And so while it is damaging to the world economy, I'm not necessarily sure why people are saying that the United States should respond in response to something that happened in Saudi Arabia.

LL: Well and then that brings me to ask about what the audience back home is thinking. Jonathan Schanzer you wrote on Twitter that foreign policy is boring to Americans until gas prices spike. How much support do you think there is among the American population for any kind of military intervention in Iran?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: I think right now probably not a whole lot. I think the average American understands that Iran is an enemy and that it is deserving of American sanctions and opprobrium. But I think beyond that the average American is really soured on the idea of adventurism or wars in the Middle East the war on terrorism Afghanistan Iraq to a certain extent what's been happening in Syria. All of these things really don't appeal to the average American there is I think a sense that we need to be turning inward and I think that is reflected in the administration of Donald Trump this isolationist tendency that this president has. But I will say this also that you know the more that Iran threatens the global economy the more that Iran attacks oil facilities around the Middle East. I think the average American as they see the price go up at the pump and they know who's responsible. I think you may see a shift in some of those attitudes, the sort of wariness that we see about the Middle East may well turn to anger.

LL: Colin Clarke, do you agree?

COLIN CLARKE: I just like to point out that you know we haven't so far really talked about the war in Yemen, which I think you know this was a loopy response is driving a lot of that. This isn't necessarily an Iranian action that happened in a vacuum. You know in some, to some extent this was a response to the Saudis kind of scorched earth counterinsurgency campaign in Yemen. So I would just like to try to put this in context.

LL: Right. And that was my next question.

COLIN CLARKE: But we should recognize that there are other factors in the region beyond Syria and beyond some of these other conflicts that are under the radar.

LL: Right because the conflict continues its humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. How much attention are diplomats paying to finding a resolution to that Colin Clarke?

COLIN CLARKE: You know how much attention are diplomats paying? I would think that's their job. So I would imagine a lot, but if they're not getting any top cover or any push from the governments that they support, so I'm not sure how invested the United States is in peace in Yemen. I hope you know there will be a move toward that. We've seen the issue come up in Congress several times but until now the administration has chosen to give some of them a blank check to the Saudis whether or not you know this recent attack changes that decision making calculus. I'm not sure, but I at least think it should be part of the conversation.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer we know that the world leaders will be meeting at the U.N. General Assembly next week. So far Iran is saying it won't meet with the U.S. Do you see these meetings though as being any kind of route to trying to de-escalate the situation?

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Well again you know I think that the Iranians had a meeting that was about to be dangled for them as soon as John Bolton left. It appeared that he lost that battle and that the president was inclined to engage with the Iranians to try to strike up a kind of a bromance as they call it in much the same way that the president had engaged with Kim Jong un from North Korea. So or even Xi Jinping from from China that it looked like we were about to go down this path. I think now with the strikes that we've just seen carried out by Iran or its proxies it's going to make it a lot harder for the president to be able to walk in and have that meeting. So I would say that right now it seems unlikely not impossible. You know again an unpredictable administration, but certainly unlikely. But I do want to just mention for a minute.

LL: We've got about 10 seconds. Go ahead.

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Go right ahead.

LL: Alright well then in that case I'm going to say thank you to both of you and I'm sure we'll talk about this again.

JONATHAN SCHANZER: Thank you.

COLIN CLARKE: Thank you.

LL: Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, a national security and foreign policy think tank. He was in Washington. And Colin Clarke is a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center and a senior adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He was in Pittsburgh. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q though. Today aa interview with the winner of this year's Polaris Music Prize, Haviah Mighty for its album, 13th floor. The prize was handed out last night. Now Alan Doyle is a Canadian musician with his share of prizes, which is why a Calgary couple wanted so badly for him to perform at their wedding. So badly in fact that they tweeted every day for a year and a half with the hashtag #AlanDoylePleasePlayOurWedding. This past weekend, Dana McKinlay and Stewart Dowd tied the knot in Charlottetown. And they got a special gift from Alan Doyle himself right after they were declared husband and wife. We will leave you with that. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Clip of Alan Doyle performing at a wedding.

Sept. 17, 2019 episode transcript

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