Canada - a new friend

Among very many other events today, I congratulated Nima Arkani-Hamed who is also a Canadian to his new prime minister. ;-) Nima who is an N.D.P. supporter mentioned that it is great that physics exists, otherwise we would have to kill each other. :-)

Much like the relations between Germany and the U.S. improved after Angela Merkel was elected as the new German chancellor, the relations between Canada and the U.S. are going to improve, too. Two years ago when the war in Iraq was getting started, many people were predicting permanently destroyed relations between the U.S. and its traditional allies.

I have always found this thinking unrealistic. Why? It's because it was clear that eventually the situation in Iraq would come to the point in which all good people in the world simply wish the country to evolve in a peaceful and democratic direction - and the U.S. investment in the country would eventually become appreciated - and moreover it was clear that it would not be such a hot topic forever.

Another reason why the predictions were unrealistic is that the leaders of the Western countries who were against Bush did not have any good reason to be re-elected, unlike Bush himself. We already see that time is working in the right direction - the leaders of Germany and Canada have already been replaced by more friendly ones and others will follow. For example, Jacques Chirac will be replaced next year. ;-)

The left-wing activists in the U.S. often like to create the illusion that the whole world outside the U.S. supports their ideology and shares their emotion with respect to George W. Bush. Well, that's definitely not the case. There is a lot of diversity out there.