while the definition of 'involved' may be of some importance in understanding exactly what that means, all evidence in front of us is in line with this claim. this does not appear to be a nato operation and none of the nato countries, or contractors within them, seem to be invited to participate in the process. this appears to be a joint us-israel operation, with necessary logistic support from regional actors. neither the british nor the french were invited to take part in the operation, either. given the central role of the israelis, and israel's contempt for the carney government, i see little reason to expect that canada will be invited to participate, or that canadian firms will be allowed to bid on contracts. the government may be framing the issue as some kind of moral decision, but the blunt reality is pretty clearly that canada was not invited to participate and that there is no reason to expect that canada will be invited to participate in the near future, without a drastic change in the direction of the canadian government.
i would certainly not characterize that reality as beneficial to canada, to canadians or to canadian capital seeking to invest at home or abroad and powerful interests in canada may have something to say about this, as they appear to in france and britain. further, you'd have to have a pretty warped concept of morality to support sending massive amounts of ammunition to fight a war of attrition in ukraine, and not support a clear war of liberation in iran. the liberation of iran is an infinitely more morally grounded mission than the forcible ukrainian occupation of the novorossiya/donbas region of southern russia, which has been fighting a lengthy war of succession against kiev. if anything, the canadian government is demonstrating a unified doctrine that it opposes the principle of self-determination, because it thinks history is over, and the geopolitical map of the world is permanently set. holding to this extremely conservative worldview is going to backfire against canada, as nobody else has it; it sounds like splendid isolation, and that's what's going to happen if we stick to it.
canada's non-invitation to this particular action may not be particularly upsetting to many canadians, which i find disappointing. canadians should be in solidarity with iranians seeking to overthrow their fascist government and happy to participate in any action leading to that outcome. the canada that i grew up in would adopt a liberal internationalist position and have solidarity for iranian self-determination, not retreat to isolation and right-wing non-interventionism. but i see that many canadians are confused by the geographical proximity of iran to iraq and, due to their own ignorance of history, are allowing themselves to be easily misinformed in conflating the two very different countries with each other. the fact that so many canadians get their information from bad sources like twitter and facebook is not helpful. it is a trivial example, but jon stewart's dusting off of the mess'o'potamia meme, despite the fact that iran is simply not in any historical definition of mesopotamia at all but is a completely different geographical area with an entirely different ethnic group that speaks an entirely different language, is instructive of that confusion. it didn't bother many people. it's close enough, and people just don't want to educate themselves. it's easier to make dumb, ignorant and/or misinformed assumptions.
however, canada's non-invitation is also coming directly off of our snub of the gaza reconstruction process. there's a direction things are moving in, and it's towards canada getting cut out and canadian capital getting cut out. further, whether we participate in this action or not, it is unquestionably in our national interest that the united states demonstrate it is able to conduct this kind of operation, after the logistical failures in iraq. many naysayers and pessimists will point to iraq as a mistake being repeated and while i think this is ignorant and wrong, it's actually not the point. the point is that the united states, as the continuing unchallenged hegemonic power, needs to demonstrate to the world that it can learn from the mistakes it made in iraq by doing the job right this time. the israelis have demonstrated a higher level of competence in this regard but the americans need to be the ones showing the world they can do this right after all and that iraq was a blip rather than the establishment of a norm. i do not share the delusions of sovereignty held by my government; i understand that canadian security is dependent on america's ability to project power, and i don't fear that but seek to influence it.
the reasons the united states is bombing iran are dubious, but regime change in iran is a goal worth supporting and the kind of action that a good police man would carry out, if it had unlimited power. i believe canada's role should be to influence the united states through soft power and, to that extent, it should be to encourage it to carry out more revolutionary acts, and not less.
canada currently has no influence in washington at all and is not invited to anything. we don't get the memos. they don't respect our opinions. they don't ask; they're not interested, they don't care. this is the legacy of justin trudeau's focus on identity politics, and mark carney is not the right person to correct the problem. so, when carney says we're not involved, it is believable, because they don't respect us. they don't want us to be involved; they wouldn't call us as they don't see us as partners. we're cut out. this should cause us to question if we're moving in the right direction, and seek a course correction that is intended to restore the level of canadian influence that existed in washington in the post-war period.