Road to Iran

"We're off on the road to Tehran
Hang on till the end of the line . . .
We may run into villains but we're not afraid to roam
Because we read the story and we end up safe at home"
(with apologies to Hope and Crosby)

Dave at The Galloping Beaver writes an excellent, thought-provoking post about Harper's incompetence in foreign affairs.
And now I'm convinced Harper will gleefully, casually, and thoughtlessly commit us to fighting with the Americans in Iran, if George calls and asks.
Here's Dave's analysis of Harper's latest gaffe, his media reaction to National Post's now discredited "yellow armband" story:

Harper, with no substantive evidence of the report's accuracy made a combative comment about the regime of a country he knows little about and then compared them to Nazi Germany. And then he kept it up by providing a statement that was in lock-step with the position of George W. Bush.
It was the performance of a rank amateur. A man who was unable to hold back when given the opportunity to present his "tough guy" theatrics in the presence of a visiting Australian prime minister John Howard. This is not new. This is the real Stephen Harper.

Howard, on the other hand, peppered his response to the story with "if that is true" and "I hadn't previously heard of that" -- after several years of American disinformation campaigns, it appears that Howard now is at least a little suspicious of "wipe Israel off the map" psyops stories like this.
Harper, evidently, is not.
Dave then recalls how Harper embarassed Canada with his 2003 Wall Street Journal letter criticizing Chretien for not joining Bush's "coalition" in Iraq:

Harper's letter to the WSJ underscored a point. Harper was a shallow thinker, was possessed of an extremely short temper and held Parliament, of which he was a member, in contempt while openly admiring the administration of the US president. It demonstrated another point: a letter published in a US newspaper for a US audience, literally condemning the people of Canada was utterly petulant - a temper tantrum from a spoiled brat who didn't get his way.

Finally, Dave explains what both incidents illustrate about Harper:

So, Harper's recent display of short-thought, long-mouth over Iran, where he would undoubtedly have suffered at least a small amount of embarrassment for inappropriate language is nothing new. Harper is no statesman. He is a diplomatic dilettante . . . What Harper has proven is that he's no leader. Anyone gullible enough to swallow raw BS, whether from a Conrad Black journal or George Bush's falsified intelligence doesn't have what it takes to run a dog pound, much less a country. And the 'tough guy' act won't go as far as he thinks.

When Bush is trying to assemble his new "coalition of the gullible" to declare unprovoked, unjustified, illegal war against Iran, I have no doubt now that Stephen will be first in line. And Canadian soldiers will not "end up safe at home" as a result.