Canada On The Same Side As Iran?

It’s not a nuclear Iran. It’s not a nuclear North Korea. It’s not a globally dominant China.

The thing we have to worry about most in the world today is that not enough people take the United States seriously anymore.

And I don’t mean its military or economic power. I mean its word.

The ultimate source of power and authority is your word. And trump has debased and squandered that power for the United States. When your words carry weight, you don’t have to rely on missiles and sanctions to get people to listen.

And when your word is strong, you can rely on something even more powerful: silence.

When the world respects what you represent, your reputation precedes you. Your mere presence embodies power and authority.

It’s why the United States never needed a military parade on the Fourth of July. It didn’t have to show what it had. Everyone already knew.

Until trump ordered one that is—a clear sign that he did not understand this basic principle of international affairs, or the power of the office he had inherited.

Think about it. Since World War II, the United States has never faced a sustained conventional military challenge from another major power. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Iran were all wars of choice.

The times the United States has been directly attacked have involved terrorists, as on 9/11, or proxies, where responsibility could be obscured or plausibly denied. No major country would openly challenge the United States. That was the power of American reputation.

Now that reputation is in shambles. And that creates a slippery slope.

First, America’s presence is no longer taken seriously. Then its word. Then its sanctions. Then, eventually, its military.

When you are no longer taken seriously, you have to use more military power, impose more sanctions, and issue more threats and demands just to accomplish what once could have been accomplished by a phone call.

That’s a very dangerous place to be. And there is another consequence that may be even more important.

Countries begin preparing for a world in which the United States can no longer be trusted.

Iran and Canada are, in very different ways, responding to the same fundamental problem: what do you do when your relationship with the United States becomes uncertain and unpredictable?

Both have become highly motivated in their conflicts with the United States because trump has made those conflicts existential. And when a conflict becomes existential, victory is no longer necessarily about defeating the other side. It's about surviving. A question of will.

Iran will outlast the United States. 

Canada will outlast the United States. 

Because both countries understand the basic calculation. They simply have to survive long enough for the political circumstances to change.

Iran is already maneuvering to take advantage of a changing balance of power, consolidating its influence around the Persian Gulf and positioning itself for a future in which American power is less decisive.

Canada is doing something similar in its own way: distancing itself from dependence on the United States and strengthening its relationships with Europe and Asia.

Trump is bankrupting the United States in its most valuable asset: its credibility.

Something that took decades for the United States to build can take only a few years to destroy.

Once countries stop believing that American power is permanent, they begin making decisions based on the assumption that it isn’t.

Alliances change. Trade changes. Military relationships change.

And the world changes with them.

And unfortunately, if history is any indication, those periods of global transition come with tremendous costs.

Costs that we will all have to pay.