Canada appeases Israel on
Iran By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
On Friday, the conservative and strongly
pro-Israel government in Canada announced that it
was cutting off diplomatic ties with the Islamic
Republic of Iran and put the Middle East country
on its list of "terror-sponsoring" states, a move
that instantly won the praise and admiration of
Israeli leaders and condemnation from Tehran, as
well as many Iranians living in Canada, who are
now impacted by the absence of consular service.
Intent on achieving maximum global
attention, the decision was announced by Canada's
Foreign Minister John Baird when attending the
summit of Pacific Rim nations, citing Iran as "the
most significant threat to
global peace and security", ie, a direct jab at
the 120 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement who
recently gathered in Tehran for a summit (under
the theme of "sustainable peace under shared
global management") and bestowed Iran with NAM's
leadership for the next three years.
In
light of Baird's failed attempt to convince the UN
secretary general not to attend the NAM summit,
Tehran has reacted to this sudden decision, which
does not cite any intelligence finding on any
imminent Iranian threat, as a favor to Israel and
a reaction to Iran's diplomatic coup at the
summit, widely regarded in Western media as a
"major setback" for Western strategy of isolating
Iran.
The Canadian government's action has
been called into question by a growing number of
Canadian experts and academics, who have pointed
out that even the United Kingdom did not go to
this extreme after an attack on its embassy in
Tehran. John Mundy, former Canadian ambassador to
Iran, has stated that breaking off relations is a
strategic mistake. On the other hand, as expected,
the government's mouthpieces have been busy
rationalizing this uncalled-for decision, which
clearly sets a new low standard for severing
diplomatic relations.
Consequently, the
potential for a meaningful improvement in
Iran-Canada relations that may have materialized
as a result of the September planned visit of
Iran's Speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, to
attend the Inter-Parliamentary meeting, has been
effectively nullified as Larijani has cancelled
the trip and lambasted Ottawa for appeasing the
Israeli warmongers. In response to Baird's excuse
of Iran's nuclear program as being one of the
reasons for shutting down the Iranian embassy,
both Larijani and the Foreign Minister Salehi have
pointed out that Iran's program is peaceful and is
monitored by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), which has repeatedly confirmed the
absence of any evidence of diversion of declared
nuclear material.
According to a Tehran
University political science professor who spoke
to the author on the condition of anonymity,
"there appears to be several inter-related
objectives behind Canada's move. First, it is
intended to reverse the recent 'reversal of
fortunes' for the Western and Israeli strategy
that was on full display at the (NAM) summit.
Second, it signals a closer and more intimate
relationship with Israel as both countries have
been expanding their commercial and military
transactions recently. Third, by bringing Canada
on board its hawkish anti-Tehran policy, Israel
now hopes to exert additional pressure on
Washington to ratchet up the pressure on Iran.
Finally, the idea is to put into motion a similar
diplomatic offensive on the part of other Western
nations to follow the footsteps of London and
Ottawa."
In other words, on the eve of the
annual UN General Assembly summit, a whole new
season of Iran-bashing is in the offing and hence
Canada's decision should not be viewed in
isolation but rather as part and parcel of a
concerted Israel-led offensive strategy against
Iran.
With respect to Canada, it has now
dutifully played its part, while play-acting that
it has permitted its seduction by a number of
female Iranian "rights activists", some of whom
are in cohorts with the Israeli operatives. One
such activist, Shabnam Assadollahi, played a key
role in smearing the Iranian cultural attache in
Canada by accusing him of making a "call to arms"
by calling on Iranians in Canada to continue
pursuing "high-level positions" in Canada and
keeping their contacts with their "beloved Iran".
A close scrutiny of the text of the
interview by the Iranian official reveals,
however, no indication that he said anything
outrageous or indicative of abnormal behavior
outside the scope of a cultural attache, much as
the right-wing Canadian government deliberately
seized on this, with much help by another Iranian
positioned within the Canadian government, Kasra
Nejatian, to accuse Iran of "intimidating Iranians
in Canada".
What is more, the "rights"
group founded by Assadollahi, Neda For A Free
Iran, features on its board one Nir Boms, a former
Israeli employee of Israel's embassy in
Washington, long known for his role in setting up
"centers" in league with the Likud Party
activists. [1]
Nir Bom's latest creation
is a "Center" for Monitoring the Impact of Peace,
along with known American Jewish neo-conservatives
such as Daniel Pipes. [2]
The question is,
of course, what is behind Israel's courtship of
certain "human rights activists" in Canada who
have been "overjoyed" by the government's closure
of Iran's embassy in Ottawa, even though this
introduces immense hardship to thousands of
students, among other Iranians.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time
that we learn of Israel's use of Iranian
dissidents for its anti-Iran purposes. Another
example belongs to the famed Iranian actress,
Shohreh Aghdashloo, who recently agreed to be the
narrator of an Iran-bashing film produced by an
extremist Israeli group setting up shop in Canada.
[3]
Without doubt, by siding with Iran's
enemies, these Iranian expatriates have tarnished
their own image in the Iranian community in
Canada, the US, and elsewhere; their consistent
failure to acknowledge atrocities committed
against Iran, such as the murder of its nuclear
scientists or the murder of hundreds of innocent
Iranians by terrorist groups such as Jundallah,
only shows that Canada's problem is infiltration
by pseudo-rights activists of Iranian origin who
are in bed with Israelis.
In conclusion,
Canada's "hasty and extreme" decision, to
paraphrase Iran's foreign ministry's spokesperson,
Ramin Mehmanparast, should be carefully reviewed
by the members of the Canadian parliament, whose
investigation may well reveal an Islamophobic,
self-inflicted wound that may ingratiate Canada
with the tiny Jewish state of Israel yet widens
the gulf with the immense part of the world that
is the Muslim world.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview
Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism",
Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005,
with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear
potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author ofIran's Nuclear Program:
Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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