Hold the applause. Foreign Minister Bill Graham has not persuaded the Americans to "back down." Some Canadians will continue to face intensive screening at the border. Newspaper headlines announcing they've foresworn "racial profiling" reveal the confusion on our side.

Most has been caused by Immigration Minister Denis Coderre. Singling out travellers born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan does not constitute racial or religious profiling. "Libyans" and "Sudanese" are not of the same race; indeed, they're not racial categories at all. Iranians are not Arabs and most of the world's Arabs are not even on the list. Syrian Christians are, as are all Israelis born in the designated countries.

The Americans are practising risk-management. The five designated countries are on the State Department's list of those harbouring terrorists. Still, we object. "A Canadian is a Canadian for all purposes," our flappable Foreign Minister sniffs. That's true at home, at least by law. But we've no right to demand the United States apply ours in their country. Indeed, we've always told them to buzz off at the slightest whiff of extraterritoriality.

It's natural for Canadian and American security policies to diverge post-Sept. 11. They're at war with Islamic extremists; we're mostly on the sidelines. They're a prime target for jihadi terrorists and their allies; we're safe and snug in the peaceable kingdom.

The United States will next turn its attention to useful "allies" such as Pakistan. (Mr. Graham will now have to figure out what to say about non-Canadians, including landed immigrants from Commonwealth countries who need U.S. visas.) "Moderate" regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- whence came most of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- will be dealt with after the Iraq war.

True, automatically fingerprinting all travellers from the five target countries is folly. But, keep in mind that over the years we, too, have had some turkeys in our policy bag. And we've never appreciated the United States pointing it out.

Still, our government is right to try to mitigate the impact of U.S. border security measures. We'd be wise not to ask that they bear greater risks so as not to offend our sensibilities. Emotional, irrational outbursts on our side of the border are counterproductive.

A realistic objective would be to ensure that holders of Canadian passports -- including those who hail from problematic countries -- should be better treated than other foreigners at the U.S. border. The most we can hope is that none of us faces more severe treatment than do returning U.S. residents and citizens born in designated countries.

We have a good case. Though the relationship has deteriorated on Jean Chrétien's watch, we remain one of the United States' best friends. Our main rival, Tony Blair's United Kingdom, still has a poor record integrating immigrants from problematic countries. We, like the Americans, have a positive view of immigration that turns newcomers into entrepreneurs and productive workers, not shoe-bombers.

No one should have been surprised that the Sept. 11 cell formed in Germany, where the ringleader, Mohamed Atta, studied for several years. Indeed, anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe can fairly be viewed as a "root cause." It's almost impossible in Austria, Germany and Belgium for Muslim and Arab immigrants to obtain citizenship. Even France -- which proudly claims authorship of the notion of human rights -- is niggardly in this regard. Its major inner cities are replete with "sans papiers"; surrounding them are banlieues worse than the South Bronx -- virtual no-go zones.

It's true that none of the Sept. 11 hijackers crossed from Canada. However, it's also true that there are some bad apples in our midst, and we should not put out the welcome mat for more. Rather, as the Americans' back door, we must persuade them of our vigilance through words and deeds.

Mr. Graham's refusal to define as terrorists both the political and military wings of Hezbollah is not the way to go about it; nor is Jean Chrétien blithely shaking hands in Beirut with the leader of that organization. More damaging, however, would be any suspicion of incompetence in our intelligence agency.

Hezbollah is on the U.S. list of "A-level terrorists." Yet, CSIS director Ward Elcock repeatedly declares that "Sunni extremism" is the threat to Canada. That definition whitewashes both wings of Hezbollah -- an organization partly funded by their fellow Shiite Muslims, who rule Iran. Most disturbingly, CSIS's watchdog panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, adopted the same definition last month in reporting that the agency was fully on top of the terrorist threat prior to Sept. 11.

Our foreign ministry is interested in courting Iran. But any indication that intelligence agencies are tailoring their findings to conform to political demands would be very damaging to our national interests.

Canadians face a stark choice: Either we tighten up on our side of the border, or the Americans will on theirs.
Norman Spector served as ambassador to Israel and Canada's first representative to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. He was chief of staff to prime minister Brian Mulroney.
enspector@hotmail.com.