Since the first American–Israeli air strikes on Iran in late February, Ottawa’s message has been muddled at best. Prime Minister Mark Carney shifted from supporting the campaign to calling it likely “inconsistent with international law” to being unable to rule out Canadian involvement.
Key points
- Canada’s military is deeply integrated into American command structures, raising questions about its involvement in Iran
- Canada supplies a range of military goods to US forces through the Canadian Commercial Corporation
- Previous US missions saw Canadian forces in active intelligence and combat roles despite messaging of non-involvement from Canadian officials
This equivocation points to a hard truth: for decades, the Canadian military has been embedded with its much stronger, well-funded brother to the south. This includes co-operation in the Middle East that effectively positioned our forces as a plug-and-play partner within United States–led coalitions. From maritime surveillance and intelligence support during the Iran–Iraq War in 1980 to major deployments in the 1990 Persian Gulf War under operations like Vagabond, Scimitar, and Friction, Canada has integrated its naval, air, and medical units into American command structures when needed.
That integration deepened after the September 11 attacks, when Canada joined the war in Afghanistan. In Kandahar, we conducted counter-insurgency operations alongside American units. Even without formally joining the 2003 Iraq invasion, Canada is widely believed to have contributed through embedded personnel and naval deployments. More recently, under Operation Impact, we help train, advise, and assist Iraqi and regional forces to prevent an ISIS resurgence. There’s also Operation Amarna, which, among other broader US and coalition objectives, provides diplomacy protection and supports missions in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Our country also has a long history with Iran—a much tenser one. In the lead up to the revolution in 1979, Canadian officials in Tehran operated in an increasingly volatile environment, with military police attached to the embassy as conditions deteriorated. During the hostage crisis, Canada helped facilitate the escape of six US diplomats in 1980.
From that point on, tensions stayed high. Flashpoints include the death of Iranian Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Tehran police custody in 2003, which prompted tougher Canadian sanctions. In 2012, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada severed diplomatic ties, closed its embassy, and expelled Iranian diplomats. The rupture deepened in 2020 with the downing of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killing all 176 people on board, including fifty-five Canadians.
Taken together, these episodes might help explain the careful distance Ottawa is now trying to maintain. Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand and Minister of National Defence David McGuinty repeatedly stressed that Canada is not involved in the newest war, was not consulted by the US, and has no plans to take part in offensive operations.
A CBC report published March 1 said the opposite. According to a former senior Canadian general, it’s “highly likely” Canadian Armed Forces personnel on exchange with the US military would have been involved on some level in the planning and coordination of air strikes on Iran (a possibility the Department of National Defence later denied in an update to the story).
Approximately eighteen CAF members are on exchange with Operation Foundation, which embeds Canadian personnel within United States Central Command headquarters—or CENTCOM—across Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Given that CENTCOM is the regional hub responsible for Operation Epic Fury, connecting the dots between CAF officers and their potential direct involvement in the Iran war would seem logical.
But getting straight answers on what our soldiers are doing is another matter entirely.
The opening air strikes of the Iran war killed the former supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several other high-value targets. Iranian leadership under Mojtaba Khamenei, the late supreme leader’s son, responded by retaliating with strikes on Israel, US bases, allied assets, and partner nations across the Gulf, by choking off trade in the Strait of Hormuz, and by destroying vast reserves of liquefied natural gas, refineries, and other crucial energy infrastructure.
Reciprocal escalations and political sparring led to US president Donald Trump threatening to wipe out a “whole civilization,” before backing off and agreeing to a ceasefire brokered by Pakistan, an agreement which hinged on Iran reopening the strait. The ceasefire held on paper, but attacks by Israel on Lebanon continued, alongside sporadic strikes by Iran. High-level talks in Islamabad between the US and Iran ended without resolution, each side blaming the other. Trump then began posting on Truth Social, floating threats of a US Navy blockade on the strait—threats which materialized and remain in place.
Amid the crisis, Canada’s military role in the region has become harder and harder to parse. The Department of National Defence told the CBC that CAF members serving on exchange with US forces in the Middle East remain in their posts but have been assigned “other duties” outside of the Iran campaign. No further explanation was provided. There is little publicly available on what kinds of jobs are part of the exchange program. CENTCOM won’t speak on behalf of other countries, confirm details, or answer questions.
In March, Lieutenant General Steve Boivin, commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command, told reporters there are about 200 armed forces members deployed to the Middle East on six operations; some of those have been rotated home or to different tasks. This past June, the DND confirmed that “up to five CAF members operate from Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.” But due to “operational security imperatives,” no further details have been provided.
Hints can be gleaned from other sources. A February LinkedIn post from Rear Admiral Kristjan Monaghan, Canada’s defence attaché to the US and commander of the Canadian Defence Liaison Staff, states that more than 750 CAF members serve across America as part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and in “exchange roles” internationally. “They plan with, fly with, sail with, and operate alongside their American counterparts in support of continental defence and Canada’s security interests,” the post says.
Monaghan’s words echo in a March 3 Toronto Star opinion piece by Lloyd Axworthy, Canadian foreign minister from 1996 to 2000. “Canadian officers sit inside American headquarters that plan and execute wars. Our ships, planes, and sensors feed systems that find, track, and fix targets,” Axworthy wrote. “On paper we are ‘supporting,’ ‘monitoring,’ ‘co-operating.’ In practice, we are part of the machinery of force.”
Indeed, that war machine runs on Canadian contributions. According to reporting in The Maple, Canada supplies a range of military goods brokered by a little-known Crown agency called the Canadian Commercial Corporation. These goods include surveillance and targeting sensors, artillery propellants, F-35 fighter jet components, and explosives. Canadian firms also provide parts for armoured vehicles and naval systems. Much of this material has been re-exported to allies, such as Israel, embedding Canadian-made components across multiple layers of US military activity.
The exports are not just weaponry. They include personnel. The Walrus confirmed that one CENTCOM role is being filled by an intelligence liaison officer tied to the Canadian Joint Operations Command. According to the DND, the officer’s main duty is “to facilitate effective communication, coordination, and mutual understanding with the timely exchange of relevant information.”
So, is it believable for Ottawa to suggest it was caught off guard when the first strikes fell? The DND’s comment, to The Walrus, that “host nations” often shield foreign military personnel on exchange from their operations rings hollow when open-source tracking of the massive American mobilization was front and centre on social media in the lead up to the war.
This wouldn’t be the first time Canada’s official position diverged from its operational footprint. Approximately 100 CAF members were embedded with US, British, and Australian military units during the invasion and war in Iraq in 2003, despite then prime minister Jean Chrétien publicly stating Canada would not take part without a United Nations Security Council resolution.
A classified US diplomatic cable released years later from WikiLeaks showed that on the same day Chrétien publicly refused to join the war, then foreign affairs official James Wright met with an American diplomat. According to the CBC, Wright “emphasized” that “contrary to statements by the prime minister, Canadian naval and air forces could be ‘discreetly’ put to use during the pending US-led assault on Iraq and its aftermath.”
Chrétien would go on to say “unfortunately, a lot of people thought sometimes that we were the fifty-first state of America. It was clear that day that we were not.” It turns out, however, that our contribution exceeded many coalition members. Retired general Walter Natynczyk served as a brigadier general in Baghdad and was in charge of 35,000 coalition troops composed of American, British, and Australian soldiers that helped plan the invasion. Natynczyk was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross in 2005 for his leadership in Iraq. One study estimated roughly 500,000 deaths from the war and occupation between 2003 and 2011.
Natynczyk, who had been deputy commanding general of the US Army’s 3rd Corps in Fort Hood, Texas, said in an interview that the Canadian government had approved his deployment. Retired lieutenant general Peter Devlin also served. Documents from 2008 reveal that, in the run-up to the invasion, two dozen CAF members worked in the plans division of CENTCOM and thirty-five under US command in exchange roles participated in the 2003 ground campaign.
Chrétien’s assertion that Canadian soldiers were not directly involved in the fighting was refuted by a British Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie McCourt, who told CBC News at the time that Canadians were on the front lines. “They are in combat,” he said.
On the morning of March 1, 2026, an Iranian air strike hit Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait in the operational support hub the CAF has maintained for more than a decade, known as “Camp Canada.” We know this because La Presse reported it a week after it occurred. Journalists had to rely on satellite imagery, their own open-source investigation, and expert analysis to build a picture of the likely sequence of events.
Questions to the prime minister and minister of national defence on why Canadians weren’t informed in a timely manner saw Carney respond that he “was not the only spokesperson for the government,” and McGuinty flip-flop on whether he knew or didn’t know of the attack before it was published by La Presse.
These non-committal replies are another chapter in Ottawa’s aspirations to preserve ties to the US while distancing itself from the repercussions of its foreign policy. A similar dynamic was uncovered over CAF personnel, tech, and assets implicated in America’s lethal Operation Southern Spear, which has killed more than 180 people in air strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific waters.
Ottawa’s playbook of delaying, denying, deflecting, and refusing to answer even the most basic questions due to “operational security” falls flat when even a cursory glance at British, Australian, and Ukrainian media channels sees them giving routine updates on their deployed forces with no issue.
The Liberal government has continued to shrug off opaque military developments. Troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s mission in Iraq quietly relocated to Europe. A recent missile strike near the Israel–Lebanon border hit a UN post hosting CAF personnel under Operation Jade, Canada’s contribution to United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Days later, an Iranian air strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia injured several US soldiers: a near miss for Canadian personnel embedded with the air force—personnel that, it turns out, were never deployed to the Gulf at all, a fact uncovered only after direct questioning by the Canadian Press.
What emerges is a pattern. At a moment of escalating regional risk, the public record of Canada’s military role remains fragmentary, assembled less through official disclosure than through persistent reporting pushing past institutional silence.
