Fresh on the heels of an electoral performance for the record books, Prime Minister Trudeau's undeniable star power instantly created that rarest of Canadian commodities: a genuine source of interest to the global community, setting opinion columnists on high alert in capitals from Europe to Asia.But what should have been a get-to-know-you first month in office that coincides with an exceptionally busy period on the global affairs calendar -- G20 meetings in Turkey, the Commonwealth summit in Malta, APEC, and COP21 in Paris -- has quickly morphed into a major test of Mr. Trudeau's commitment to global multilateralism.Former British PM Harold MacMillan, when asked about the greatest threat to his plans, famously replied "events, dear boy, events".In that spirit, Mr. Trudeau had no sooner arrived at the Ottawa Airport on Friday for his departure to G20 meetings in Antalya when he was thrust into a hastily arranged press conference to address the unfolding terrorist horror engulfing Paris.Mr. Trudeau said all the right things about keeping Canadians safe, offering aid to our friends in the City of Light, and needing to gather all the facts, during his brief media availability.What remains to be seen is whether, in this heightened post-attack political climate, the PM can remain steadfast in two major electoral commitments: to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada in short order, while ending Canada's involvement in the western coalition's bombing campaign against ISIS.Despite early reports that at least one of the ISIS perpetrators in Paris was a Syrian refugee processed through Greece, Mr. Trudeau will not have great difficulty communicating on the home front that it is our moral duty to help those Syrians in need -- refugees who Canadians understand are fleeing ISIS by and large. No screening process is foolproof, but that is no reason to neglect our responsibility.On the second commitment, events in Paris will make it much more difficult for Mr. Trudeau, the newest player at every major gathering of world leaders he will engage this month, to demonstrate that Canada can again be a reliable multilateral ally.While France considers invoking NATO's collective defence clause (Article 5), and other allies publicly declare support for ramping up the bombing of ISIS, Mr. Trudeau's move to end Canada's Royal Air Force contribution at this very moment in time risks being viewed as an early abdication of multilateral responsibility. Worse, it could lose Canada a major bargaining chip with our international allies on a host of other issues in the short term.But a short term perception problem is not a good enough reason to engage in yet another ham-fisted western intervention in the Middle East with no viable end game and the strong likelihood of provoking even greater instability.The reality of the ongoing situation in the Middle East is, to Mr. Trudeau's credit, too complicated for a simplistic bomb-now-ask-questions-later mentality.Mr. Trudeau will have to take comfort in the fact that he is making the correct decision, and that in any group of people -- G20 leaders or otherwise -- you are of greatest value to that group by honestly stating your views, however unpopular in the emotional wake of any particular happening.A short examination of the history of western intervention in the Middle East will bear Mr. Trudeau's view out.The Treaty of Versailles negotiations at the conclusion of WW1 set the table for today's powder keg, carving up the former Ottoman Empire according to western interests with little regard for its history, let alone ethnocultural and religious realities.More recently, western interventions are responsible for helping arm and train Al Qaeda to fight the communist Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, an intervention that bears special scorn after Al Qaeda brought their ruthless brand of terrorism to American soil twenty years later.After more than a decade of battle in Afghanistan commencing in 2001 -- for context, western allies including Canada have spent greater resources on nation building in that country than all of the time and money spent on the Marshall Plan to rebuild the whole of Europe after WW2 -- Afghanistan remains a failed state.Most recently, western allies joined together to remove the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003, and topple Libyan madman Moammar Ghaddafi by aerial bombing in 2011. As in Afghanistan, these interventions removed truly despicable regimes from power. But at what cost? Both interventions destabilized and created a power vacuum that a worse evil has grown to fill -- that being ISIS.The fact is, ISIS only thrives in places where multilateral western actions centred around bombing campaigns have destabilized the local strongman to leave massive power vacuums.How, then, can the solution to ISIS possibly be more western bombing?Doing what is sensible will not be popular in the immediate aftermath of Paris' horrors.But if Mr. Trudeau is to truly prove Canada's value as global multilateral ally, he must remain steadfast in his commitment against the latest ill-considered bombing round.Matthew Lombardi is a Toronto based public policy consultant. He holds an MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics.