First, as the rumors surrounding a possible Liberal-NDP merger were just starting to swirl, but after Michael Ignatieff had pooh-poohed the idea—but before he backtracked and said he wouldn’t rule out cooperation—I published a piece calling for frank discussion of some electoral arrangement.

Second, after Montreal was knocked out of the playoffs, I contributed to a series on how to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada. In typical conservative fashion, I argued that the key was to build a better economy.

And third, as part of a series on how to improve the three main Canadian political parties, I had a piece arguing that the Tories needed to be thoughtful, be confident, and be unafraid.

I’m not sure the Mark will want to publish me as regularly as once a week, so if an article doesn’t appear over there, I’ll publish it here; otherwise I’ll provide a link here. But I do recommend bookmarking and visiting The Mark regularly—they’re doing interesting things over there, and as the community develops the site will only get better.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a rare public rebuke to close ally Canada on Monday, criticizing it for excluding key nations from a meeting to discuss the resource-rich Arctic. . . .

“Significant international discussions on Arctic issues should include those who have legitimate interests in the region,” Clinton said in a statement issued before the meeting had even begun.

“I hope the Arctic will always showcase our ability to work together, not create new divisions.”

Tuesday, March 30, 9:16 a.m.:

The United States would like Canada to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011, the year Canada is scheduled to end its combat mission in the country, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told [the CBC].

Tuesday, March 30, 11:14 a.m.:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011.

***

Now perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. Maybe this was an orchestrated pantomime by Clinton and Harper, with the Americans giving Harper cover to make withdrawal look like an assertion of Canadian sovereignty and independence. Or perhaps Clinton, in pursuit of American interests, wanted to goad Canada into a reaffirmation of its withdrawal commitment. But if we take everyone at their word, and assume no ulterior motives, this certainly seems like a diplomatic gaffe by Clinton.

Oh, and finally, it should be noted–and strongly emphasized–that the conduct of our foreign policy should not depend, in the slightest, on the pronouncements or mis-pronouncements of the American Secretary of State, or anyone else. Clinton was wrong to make her Arctic point the way she did, but Canada’s big enough to shrug it off, and it should have absolutely nothing to do with our decision to withdraw from Afghan military operations.

At the close of the debate I’ll re-post my material here, but for now please head on over to Catelli’s and check it out.

President Barack Obama has refused to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington this week in a move to curry favour with the Chinese. The decision came after China stepped up a campaign urging nations to shun the Tibetan spiritual leader. It means Mr Obama will become the first president not to welcome the Nobel peace prize winner to the White House since the Dalai Lama began visiting Washington in 1991.

Sophie Richardson, Asia advocate for Human Rights Watch, said: “Presidents always meets the Dalai Lama and what happens? Absolutely nothing. This idea that if you are nice to the Chinese Communist Party up front you can cash in later is just wrong. If you lower the bar on human rights they will just move it lower and lower.”

• The Law Library of Congress’s Directorate of Legal Research has issued what is, to date, the only objective legal analysis of the Honduran constitutional crisis. Its conclusion?

  Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system.

  In other words: it wasn’t a coup. The report proceeds through a series of questions: [1] Does the Honduran constitution empower the Congress and / or the judiciary to remove a president? (Yes); [2] Did the Honduran Supreme Court have the legal authority to hear a case against the president? (Yes); [3] Did the Honduran Supreme Court have the legal authority to order the military to carry out an arrest warrant against the president? (Yes); [4] Did the Honduran Congress have legal authority to remove a president from office? (Yes); [5] Was Zelaya removed from office in accordance with these legal rules? (Yes).

  The crux of the report, at least with regard to Zelaya’s actual removal from office, is that the Honduran Constitution empowers the Congress to “approve or disapprove” executive conduct, and that the Congress had the authority to interpret the word “disapprove” to include the power of removal. That’s a controversial interpretation, to be sure; but as the report notes, the Constitution vests Congress with that interpretative power. There will inevitably be many outside of Honduras, and not a few within, who will claim that the interpretation was flawed. But the Honduran Constitution clearly empowers Congress to make the judgment call it made. Imposing any other interpretation clearly undermines the rule of law.

  Finally, the report notes that Zelaya’s forcible removal from Honduras likely violated the Constitution, which provides that “[n]o Honduran may be expatriated nor handed over to the authorities of a foreign State.” But as I’ve noted elsewhere, the fact that Zelaya’s removal from Honduras was illegal does not mean that Zelaya’s removal from office was illegal. It wasn’t.

• In the wake of the Law Library of Congress report, opinions may finally be shifting. Writing in The New Republic—a traditionally liberal magazine—James Kirchick notes that “the report paints Zelaya’s removal as remarkably orderly and legalistic, especially in a region where the rule of law is so tenuous.” As he notes, this leaves the Obama administration (which has steadily escalated its condemnation of the removal and its demands for Zelaya’s return to office) “squarely contradicted by the only known official analysis of the constitutional issues involved.” Kirchick offers an interesting explanation for the administration’s stubbornness:
  

  The day after Zelaya was put on a plane to Costa Rica, Obama condemned the move as illegal, saying that “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections. We don’t want to go back to a dark past.” His invocation of U.S. support for armed opposition movements fighting communist insurgencies in Latin America during the Cold War is one of numerous apologies for past American actions that he has offered since taking office, a tactic which seems to be a core tenant of his diplomatic strategy.

  That may or may not be Obama’s motivation; but in any case, as Kirchick rights, it seems clearer by the day that “U.S. policy has become a mistake in search of a rationale.”

• The latest manifestation of that mistake is the American threat not to recognize the outcome of the upcoming presidential election—notwithstanding the fact that the election is a contest between candidates chosen while Zelaya was in office and administered by an electoral commission similarly assembled before Zelaya’s ouster. In short, the Obama administration has decided to use Honduran democracy as a bargaining chip in order to achieve Zelaya’s return to office. Kirchick notes the absurdity and hypocrisy of this position:
  

  How does this administration justify its recognition of results of elections in Pakistan, Iraq, and other countries mired in constitutional disputes, but now refuse to recognize an election in Honduras, even if it is conducted in a free and fair manner? And why give greater diplomatic dignity to the representatives of Iran–who have no legitimacy whatsoever–and not those of democratic Honduras?

  Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Kevin Casas-Zamora makes a similar point:

  However imperfect, the election still offers the best route to restore some kind of normality in Honduras, so that the country’s democratic breakdown is not complete. . . . Without a doubt, semi-authoritarian thugs like Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega will cry foul no matter the election result since their man in Tegucigalpa never returned to power. But for serious countries such as the United States and Brazil — countries that wound up accepting the results of the recent election in Iran — turning the winner of a free and fair election in Honduras into a pariah would not just be an act of immense hypocrisy but also of foolishness. It is a surefire way to prolong this crisis indefinitely into the future. The price of this would be paid, as usual, by the poorest of the poor in Honduras.

  He concludes: “Unless evidence emerges that the current authorities in Honduras are engaging in systematic harassment against opposition leaders or the press, evidence of which so far has been scant, there is no reason to deny diplomatic recognition to the winner of November’s poll.”

• Michael Totten, writing in Commentary magazine, echoes this point:
  

  Either way, whether the ousted president returns or he doesn’t, a new election is scheduled to take place in November, and a new government will be sworn in next January. The crisis will then be over no matter what else happens between now and then. This may not be the preferred solution for the Obama administration and the Organization of American States, but it will solve the problem. Both Zelaya and the controversial interim government will be history. The only reason Honduras should be isolated or sanctioned after November is if the election is stolen or canceled.

  Indeed. How has such a simple proposition become so controversial? And what madness has seized the Obama administration that they are willing to write off the results of even a free and fair democratic election in order to rationalize a hasty and ill-considered initial stance?

• And what of the man Obama would make President of Honduras again? The Miami Herald reports:
  

  It’s been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He’s sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and “Israeli mercenaries” are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

  Ah. So either [1] Israeli mercenaries are torturing Zelaya with high-frequency radiation; or [2] Zelaya is a paranoid delusional; or [3] Zelaya is not delusional, but there are no Israeli mercenaries, and Obama’s preferred president is knowingly stoking anti-Semetic sentiment. (Not anti-Semetic? Then why “Israeli” mercenaries?)

The global endorsement of Manuel Zelaya following his ouster was hasty and ill-considered back in June. In October it has become a farce. Will the United States really betray the cause of democracy and the rule of law in Honduras? And if it does, will Canada play along?

Underlying all the rhetoric about a military overthrow are facts. Simply put, coups do not leave civilians in control over the armed forces, as is the case in Honduras today. Neither do they allow the independent functioning of democratic institutions — the courts, the attorney general’s office, the electoral tribunal. Nor do they maintain a respect for the separation of powers. In Honduras, the judicial, legislative and executive branches are all fully functioning and led by civilian authorities.

Most importantly, as Micheletti notes, coups do not allow for regularly scheduled elections — and yet a presidential election is scheduled to go ahead in early November, and there has been no suggestion that the army, or the interim government, or anyone except Zelaya intends to interfere with that election:

The election is being convened by an autonomous body, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, whose magistrates were selected by Congress in early 2009 and ratified by then-President Zelaya. The autonomous body began the electoral process with presidential primary elections — which were supervised by the Organization of American States — in 2008 also during Zelaya’s tenure.

The next six weeks will determine not only the political future of Honduras, but the commitment of the international community to democracy and the rule of law.