The
Conservative government said Tuesday it would boycott a United Nations
disarmament conference chaired by Iran — currently targeted by sanctions
over its rogue nuclear arms program — on the grounds that it makes a
“mockery” of the effort against arms proliferation. It is the latest
sign of a new boldness in Canada’s stance against the Islamic Republic.
Canada is once again temporarily turning its back on the United Nations
Conference on Disarmament over its selection of a controversial
president.
Iran take its turn at the helm of the organization later in May,
prompting Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird to announce Tuesday that
Canada will sit out the sessions during their term.
Giving Iran the position, even if it is only temporary, makes a mockery of disarmament issues, said Baird spokesman Rick Roth.
“Iran’s leaders blatantly ignore their international obligations, all
while undermining regional security,” Roth said in a statement.
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Since late last year, Canada has recalled its diplomats from Tehran,
expelled Iran’s from Ottawa, openly called for regime change, condemned
next month’s Iranian elections as a “cynical charade,” expanded economic
sanctions, and praised Israel for a bombing raid inside Syria against
Iranian-backed Hezbollah arms shipments. Ottawa’s increasingly vocal and
outward enmity toward one particular autocratic regime demonstrates a
targeted hostility rarely seen out of Ottawa, and perhaps not since the
Second World War. The Conservatives are hardly being shy about their
intent: They want the current Iranian leadership gone.
John Baird, the Foreign Minister, has launched a social media
campaign to incite democratic opposition to the Iranian regime, both
globally and behind the country’s notorious “Halal” Internet firewall,
which blocks access to foreign sites after 60 seconds.
“The people mock ‘Halal’ Internet for the ridiculous proposition that it is,” Mr. Baird said at a
University
of Toronto conference last weekend to launch Global Dialogue on the
Future of Iran, which broadcasts academic debates over the web in Farsi
and English under special security settings to protect anonymity, thwart
censors, and encourage dissident communities.
“Since we suspended diplomatic relations with Iran in September of
last year, we’ve been expanding our outreach with Iranians in Canada and
Iranians around the world, and we’ve been asking them a number of
questions, but one of the most important questions [is] ‘What can Canada
do to counter the threat posed by the Iranian regime?’” said a
government source, speaking on background.
The most common answer, he said, was that the Iranian regime’s greatest vulnerability is information.
“The Iranian people need weapons, but when they say ‘weapons,’ they
don’t mean small arms or heavy weapons. They mean access to the free
internet, the ability to have an unfettered conversation among
themselves, the ability for people inside the country to hear the
democratic voices based outside the country, the ability to connect and
engage in a free and open debate about the future of their country,” the
official said. “So this Global Dialogue is the government of Canada’s
inaugural effort to facilitate, support and encourage that requirement.”
Mr. Baird, directly addressing the Iranian people, said they
themselves are the Iranian government’s greatest fear, and so Canada’s
goal is “robust elections which take power out of the hands of puppet
masters and place it in your hands, the hands of the people.”
Peter Macdiarmid - WPA Pool/Getty ImagesForeign Affairs Minister John Baird
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the theocratic government,
is “the greatest threat to international peace and security in the world
today,” Mr. Baird said. “The regime is hollow. It does not have the
depth, the intellect, the humanity, or the humility to bring about a
better future for its people.”
The aggressive language is consistent with, even if it is the
starkest example of, the Canadian government’s foreign policy under
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which it promotes as “principled,” in
contrast to the compromising stance of previous Liberal governments. Now
that it has abandoned all pretense of diplomacy with official Iran and
is instead openly inciting revolution against it, however, critics worry
Canada may have sacrificed impact for principle. Houchang Hassan-Yari, a
professor of politics at Royal Military College of Canada, wonders if
Ottawa has anything left to offer besides supportive gestures.
“Is the voice of Canada strong enough that Iranians will go out and
put in danger their lives?” said Prof. Hassan-Yari, who has also taught
in Iran. “Unfortunately for Canada’s influence in Iran, I would say it
is zero. There is no influence … I don’t say there is no value in these
activities, but I’m doubtful about the results.”
The Canadian government’s goal may be nurturing the fledgling groups
of dissidents in Iran. But, the Iranian regime has proved itself
determined and powerful in the face of existential threats.
“Are those people going to get out on the street and call for the end
of the regime?” Prof. Hassan-Yari said. “They did in 2009, what was the
result?”
The result was brutal oppression — imprisonment, torture, murder —
epitomized for the wider world by the shooting death of protester Neda
Agha-Soltan, which was caught on video, and became an icon of the
resistance, even as it failed.
“There was a sense of disappointment,” said Prof. Hassan-Yari. “Now
the outside tries to do something, and I’m not sure the inside is going
to react the same way it did in 2009.”
Mr. Baird acknowledged Canada “should have been more vocal in
supporting this movement. We could have done more. From our desktops, we
did modest things to stand with you,” he said.
Canada’s relationship with Iran has long been abysmal, especially so
since the 2003 murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian Canadian freelance
photographer who was tortured and killed after her arrest in Tehran.
It was recently strained by RCMP allegations that the suspects in the
VIA train plot were acting at the behest of al-Qaeda elements inside
Iran. Asked about this report, the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Salehi said it was the most hilarious thing he had ever heard, because
al Qaeda’s fundamentalist Sunni version of Islam is at odds with Iran’s
Shia theocracy.
‘Unfortunately for Canada’s influence in Iran, I would say it is zero. There is no influence … I’m doubtful about the results’
There is a history of cooperation, however, for instance when al
Qaeda fighters entered Iran from Afghanistan after the 2001 American
invasion, and Iran’s support for Hamas in Gaza.
Canada imposed sanctions in 2006, following the UN’s lead amid
reports of escalating nuclear production, and has since broadened them,
most recently in December. It has declared Iran a state sponsor of
terrorism, and listed both Iran-sponsored Hezbollah and the Quds Force,
part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as terrorist entities.
“We simply lost what little faith we had in this regime,” Mr. Baird
said. “But we have never lost faith in the people of Iran. In fact, we
want to expand our relations with Iranians, free from the regime’s
filters.”
There is a flipside to Canada’s outreach to Iranians, which is Iran’s
outreach to Canadians — or in its international jabs against Canada —
for example in the use of fringe mouthpieces, including hosting radical
Canadian aboriginal leaders to denounce Canada as a violator of human
rights, and academics such as Shiraz Dossa, who have attended Iranian
conferences on Holocaust revisionism.
Joshua Blakeney, a Calgary-based correspondent for Iran’s state-owned
Press TV who recently told its audience the VIA plot looks like
“Zionist” propaganda, said in an email: “I don’t think Iranians want any
lectures on democracy from John Baird. The only kind of dissent induced
by Baird’s latest propaganda stunt will be yet more dissent against the
election-fraud Harper ‘government,’ a regime which many people in the
Middle East view as having no independence from Israel.”
Canada’s Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, whose Iranian-born wife
Nazanin Afshin-Jam also spoke at the conference about child executions
in Iran, said he is convinced that the Ayatollah’s “diabolical
dictatorship” will fall. He said he looks forward to a better Iran for
their six-week-old son Kian to visit “as a citizen, not a soldier.”
“We want Iranians unburdened, unshackled from this regime,” he said.
“We want you to be able to drink from the fountain of freedom, and join
the global community of free states.”
