Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird arrived in Baghdad today, opposition MPs in tow, to deliver a sharp message of ethnic tolerance to a new Iraqi leadership that's struggling to contain a rampaging militant insurgency.
His commercial flight touched down under clear skies in blistering, 46 C heat.
Baird's unannounced, security-shrouded visit — his second to Iraq in almost 18 months — comes just days after a major battlefield breakthrough in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaida splinter group wreaking havoc across Syria and northern and western Iraq.
The full scope of the violence has come into sharper focus in recent days, in part because of a new Amnesty International report accusing ISIL of ethnic cleansing against religious minorities, including thousands of members of the Yazidi faith.
The group has also claimed responsibility for the recent beheading deaths — each purportedly depicted in videos released on the Internet — of two U.S. journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
The serious security situation awaiting Baird in Baghdad was underscored by U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to deploy an additional 350 military personnel to protect U.S. diplomats in the Iraqi capital, bringing to 820 the number of American troops assigned that task.
On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council said it would investigate ISIL's possible crimes against the civilian population.
Baird to meet senior officials
The UN says more than 1,400 Iraqis were killed — the vast majority of them civilians — in August, a decline from the previous month's death toll of more than 1,700.
In June, the death toll hit 2,400, Iraq's highest since the spring of 2005.
Baird's agenda includes meetings with senior members of the incoming government of Haider-al-Abadi, the successor to Nouri al-Maliki, who served as Iraq's prime minister for the past eight years.
Al-Maliki stepped down last month in the face of strong and growing political pressure.
He was widely criticized of promoting a pro-Shiite agenda that alienated Iraq's Sunni minority — a political path that many say led to the rise of ISIL.
"Canada has consistently called for Iraqi leaders to come together and govern for all Iraqis, regardless of religion, for the sake of the security, democracy and prosperity that the Iraqi people are striving to implant in their country," Baird's spokesman Rick Roth said ahead of the minister's arrival in Baghdad.
"It is our hope that this visit highlights our commitment on this front."
Baird accompanied by opposition MPs
The message was to be reinforced by opposition MPs Paul Dewar and Marc Garneau, the NDP and Liberal foreign affairs critics, who accompanied Baird to Baghdad at his request in a show of non-partisan political solidarity.
The Canadian delegation wants al-Abadi to build a strong cabinet that believes in tolerance.
"It will have to be more than one-face change," said Dewar.
"A new prime minister needs to have a team around him that is going to include all minorities, particularly including the Sunnis."
Al-Maliki was unable to unite Sunnis, Shiites, Christian minorities and other groups, said Garneau.
"And this is one of the reasons that the Islamic State has been able to implant itself vigorously in Iraq."
The Sunni insurgency, also known as ISIS, broke out earlier this year, catching Iraqi's security forces off guard and allowing the group to claim cities and large swaths of land in the country's north and west.
In a significant breakthrough Sunday, Iraqi security forces and Shia militias ended the Islamic State siege on the town of Amirli, where about 15,000 Shia Turkmens had been trapped for the last two months.
Iraq received support from Iran after thousands of Shiite militias answered the exhortation of Iraq-based Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to direct their fire at Sunni insurgents.
Time to reconsider hard line on Iran: NDP
The U.S. has played down the role of Iran, America's sworn enemy since its Islamic revolution more than 30 years ago.
Tehran's apparent good-guy posture also has foreign policy implications for the Harper government.
Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012, shuttering its embassy in Tehran and kicking its diplomats out of Ottawa.
Baird, in particular, has been a loud, boisterous critic.
Dewar said it is time for Canada to reconsider its hard line towards Iran.
"Diplomacy is talking to people you find it difficult to talk to. That's why it's important to have a presence anywhere you can."
Added Garneau: "It's a delicate thing to manoeuvre because Canada has a certain position with respect to Iran on a number of issues — some very serious issues including human rights."
The Obama administration, reluctant to be drawn into a new conflict in Iraq, has come to the aid of Iraqi forces through targeted airstrikes that began early last month.
The crisis has also presented a conundrum for many U.S. allies, including Canada, which did not support the original 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that many now view as the root cause of the current situation.
Canada has contributed transport planes, humanitarian aid
At the request of Iraq and the U.S., Canada, France and Italy have joined Britain and Australia by helping transport guns, mortars and ammunition to Iraqi forces.
On Sunday, Germany added tank-busting weapons, armoured vehicles and protective gear to aid 4,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq.
Canada has contributed two military transport planes to the region, a CC-130J Hercules as well as a CC-177 Globemaster, which last week successfully delivered weapons donated by Albania.
The Harper government has so far committed $21 million in humanitarian assistance to Iraq this year, as well as non-combat military assistance to Western efforts to protect civilians.
Last week, Canada started sending relief supplies to Iraq from a new warehouse that it established in Dubai, as part of the country's effort to enable it to more quickly respond to crises in Asia and Africa.
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