You have to wonder who would be more stunned by this week of debacles in Canadian foreign policy — government ministers, our diplomats or Canada's generals.

One can understand their collective shock. It is unlikely this country has ever suffered two such humiliating international fiascos simultaneously.

There is simply no sugar coating the drubbing Canada has taken.

First we were essentially booted out of our Camp Mirage airbase near Dubai in the Persian Gulf by our decade-long hosts, the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, they further humiliated our defence minister and chief of defence staff by denying them even a right to land on a flyover from Afghanistan.

Then, within 24 hours, Canada suffered the ignominy of our failed bid for a prized seat on the UN Security Council, something the government had hoped would hand them a political triumph.

The Indian delegation is congratulated on the floor of the General Assembly on Oct. 12, 2010 for being elected to a two-year term on the Security Council. Four other nations, Colombia, Germany, Portugal and South Africa were similarly elected to non-permanent seats. Canada withdrew after the second ballot. (Evan Schneider/Associated Press)

Together, these events were a unique double-mugging of Canada right out there on the world stage. We didn't even get to bleed in private.

I cannot recall another Western nation being treated with such offhand disdain by so many nations long considered "friendly."

The UAE, which for nine years hosted our semi-secret air transit Camp Mirage, vital to our Afghanistan mission, now suddenly portrays Canada as an ungrateful deadbeat and wants our military packed up and gone within 30 days.

Whew. We often give deportees longer to clear their affairs and leave the country.

A very public payback

Although clearly startled by the week's events, Ottawa has known for more than a year that UAE anger was at the boiling point.

One of our few Arab allies in the region, it feels Canada failed to show appropriate gratitude by acceding to its request for new landing rights in Canada for its two official airlines.

The very public payback has left us scrambling to relocate our most important supply and staging post, which is required not only for ongoing operations but for the full pullout of nearly 3,000 troops next year as our Afghan mission ends.

Adding insult to the eviction, the UAE is also warning Canada may lose billions in future trade contracts as it is being seen as untrustworthy.

"Canada today is behaving like the defunct states of the Iron Curtain," one anonymous UAE official is reported to have said. Not an image Canada seeks.

One can only imagine the tense conversation Defence Minister Peter MacKay had with his top soldier, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, as they were forced to skirt UAE airspace and reroute for Europe.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay talks to Canadian troops in Kandahar on Monday, Oct.11, 2010, just before he discovers he is no longer allowed in UAE airspace. (Jonathan Montpetit/Canadian Press)

Suddenly two airborne persona non grata with much on their mind.

In a box

Remarkably, in the aftermath to this incident, it appeared that MacKay was hardly in the loop.

Though Canada's military has the most at stake in the showdown over Camp Mirage, it now appears MacKay was cut out of the serious negotiations with the UAE by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

According to media reports, Harper seems to have wanted to take a hard line with the UAE and wasn't about to budge from restricting that country's airlines to only four additional Canadian flights a week.

Given that the UAE has largely made the Canadian mission in Afghanistan possible these last few years, through the use of Camp Mirage, this seems the height of ingratitude.

Which is why I believe the rumours that MacKay is furious at this whole fiasco. Indeed, the military is asking itself why its vital concerns seemed to have been ignored by the powers that be in Ottawa.

Worst of all, the UAE decision to bar MacKay and Natynczyk from landing — a calculated escalation clearly noted by its Arab neighbours and all of NATO — has put the Harper government in a box.

For any move by Canada now to make concessions will be seen as bowing to UAE blackmail. The question of national "loss of face" is now involved, the very element diplomats always try to avoid.

Enough blame

Of course, diplomats have never been among Harper's prized people and neither, it seems, has been patient diplomacy in the interests of Canada's long-term interests.

This has given Canada the sort of vague and disconnected foreign policy that helps explains our historic debacle at the UN this week, as we pulled out of the running for one of the rotating Security Council seats, something we have never been denied in the past.

While the Government's first instinct in the face of the UN defeat was to blame the Liberal opposition (who else?) this defence fell apart in the face of its own ham-fisted record to win over the very UN body it had barely been able to hide its contempt for.

Let's face it, Canada was soundly outmanoeuvred by Portugal, not exactly a powerhouse of UN involvement, because our overall standing in the world of diplomacy has fallen so remarkably in recent years.

Can we imagine a past Liberal government or the Conservative one under the worldly Brian Mulroney flubbing a UN vote this badly? Or leaving our military so hung out to dry in Dubai?

Our diplomats used to be among the best in the world. Now they're among the also-rans.

"The ineffectiveness of our foreign ministry has become a cliché in Ottawa's contemporary political culture," two highly respected diplomatic elders wrote in the Globe and Mail after the UN failure.

Allan Gotlieb, the former ambassador to Washington, and Colin Robertson decried the loss of "coherence, speed and consistency" in our much reduced diplomatic service.

The Harper government "is silent as to why a government needs an effective foreign service," they wrote. "Yet now more than ever we need skilled diplomats and a strong foreign ministry."

Some policy arguments are easy to dismiss. But not this one, particularly in light of the bizarre and bruising week this country has just experienced on the world stage.

One hope survives the week: That it may finally be evident to everyone that Canada's current diplomatic system is broken and that, given a scarcely stable world, there's not a lot of time left in which to fix it.