On the morning of February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury—a coordinated military assault on Iran targeting its nuclear programme, military infrastructure, and senior leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. By the end of the weekend, Iran’s supreme leader was dead, the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shut, oil prices were surging, and retaliatory Iranian missiles had struck targets across six Gulf states.
Barely two months earlier, the same administration had launched Operation Absolute Resolve against Venezuela—capturing President Maduro in what was characterized as a “law enforcement action” that deployed overwhelming military force. Two sovereign states subjected to military operations in eight weeks. One justified as policing, the other as pre-emption. Both accompanied by explicit demands for regime change and resource control.
Canadians need to understand that the country wielding cruise missiles in Tehran on Saturday morning is the same country wielding tariff weapons against Ottawa on Monday morning. The toolbox is the same. Only the instruments change.
This is the geostrategic environment in which Canada must now negotiate the future of its most critical economic relationship. The July 2026 CUSMA review approaches against a backdrop not of rules-based order but of interest-based power.4 And Canada—still clutching its moral rulebook, still preaching to the congregation at Davos, still holding consultations when it should be deploying countermeasures—is bringing a rulebook to a bulldozer fight.
About the Speaker
Barry Appleton, FCIArb, is one of North America’s leading legal architects of sovereign economic policy, trade law, and investment treaty arbitration. As Managing Partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers LP in Toronto and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for International Law at New York Law School, he advises governments and strategic sectors on how to navigate and shape the evolving legal terrain of international commerce, digital sovereignty, and geopolitical risk.
