John Baird, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, last Friday announced Canada’s position on Iran, indicating it was shutting down its embassy at the same time expelling all Iranian diplomats. His “talking point”—as all conservatives have—concerned the safety of the embassy staff in Tehran. He returned to this argument several times; however, what truly underlies the Canadian regimes’ position is its inbred Islamaphobia and its sycophantic “wannabe” pretence of being a world power.
Canada is highly aligned with both the United Kingdom and the United States, the latter in particular as the Canadian regime is enamoured of U.S. militarized culture, and the vast majority of Canadian culture and news is influenced or delivered under U.S. influence.
The following article is a deconstruction of John Baird’s statement made in Russia at the APEC conference, an obviously deliberate plan in order to garner world attention for the announcement. The double standards and the willful and malevolent ignorance of the announcement are reasonably obvious to most readers with background knowledge of current events and historical events in Iran and the Middle East.
John Baird—transcript of Iranian diplomatic announcement. Baird‘s voice is italicized.
Canada’s position on this regime is very well known. Canada views the government of Iran as the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today. A highly arguable point considering that the it is the U.S that has established its military around the globe, has the largest military in the world, with the most powerful nuclear arsenal. It is this military presence and the known tendency of the U.S to use it overtly or covertly as its main method of getting what it wants that creates the largest threat to “peace and security in the world today.”
It is providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime. No proof provided on the “increasing” assistance, but it has been well reported that the U.S. via its proxy dictators in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and its NATO allies, especially Turkey, have been supplying military assistance to the al-Queda groups reported to be one of the main U.S. partners in this proxy war.
It refuses to comply with UN resolutions pertaining to its nuclear program. The Iranian nuclear program is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and as indicated by both U.S and Israeli intelligence is not making weapons. The obvious double standard here of course is that Israel has a large nuclear arsenal and it stands outside the NPT along with Pakistan, India, and North Korea—all wonderful examples of rogue nuclear states that the politicians and media tend to ignore as they pronounce their indictments against the Iranians. Only the U.S. has used nuclear weapons and has on several occasions threatened to use them. The U.S. has also assisted India with its nuclear weapons research. Previously it had assisted the Shah of Iran with the beginnings of a nuclear program (see below).
It routinely threatens the existence of the state of Israel and engages in racist anti-semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide. Similarly, the U.S and Israel routinely threaten the existence of Iran and other regimes around the world, not that it is an excuse for anyone threatening such acts, illegal in international law and the UN Charter. There is only one incident of misinterpreted “incitement to genocide” that I am aware of, and Baird offers no references to any at all. The misinterpretation serves the U.S./Israeli purposes well, but it does not talk of genocide, but of the removal of the Zionist government in Israel. Yes, being picky with semantic interpretations and consequences here, but Baird and the Canadian regime are using the same tactics to present their flawed argument.
It is one of the world’s worst violators of human rights. Hmm, certainly a violator if some of the media reports are true, as are most governments in one way or another, but at least they do it domestically. But then the Saudi’s and the Bahrainis have certainly taken the moral high road with their protesting citizens by murdering and imprisoning them without complaint from Canada or the U.S. The U.S. is no paragon of virtue, allowing torture at its offshore military prisons—and probably domestically if the Bradley Manning case is an example—and as indicated above, violating human rights around the world by establishing their military rule in order to support the dictators and cronies of their choice regardless of the wishes of the majority of the people. They have a historical record of over-turning governments through invasion, by proxy wars, assassination, or other covert operations. No, it is not Canada doing this, but as indicated as well, Canada—through its many connections to the U.S.—is complicit with all U.S. war crimes and human rights violations.
And it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups. No references are given here, although one can assume that he is referring to Hezbollah, which is a democratically elected participant in the government of Lebanon. The other assumption must be Hamas, the Islamic group initially supported by Israel to counter the PLO/Fatah network. Hamas was democratically elected to be the governing body of the Palestinian people, but this was rejected by Canada, followed by the U.S. The terror that Israel’s occupation of Palestine has spread over the West Bank with its land confiscations, house demolitions, military rule, imprisonment, torture, and killings, never receives contextual reference within Canadian/U.S. media. Gaza is essentially an open air prison, but arguably prisoners are treated better than the citizens of Gaza, who are treated more like internment camp or concentration camp inhabitants.
The government of Canada is formally listing Iran today as a state sponsor of terrorism under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. Moreover the Iranian regime has shown blatant disregard for the Vienna Conventions and it s guarantee of protection for diplomatic personnel. Under the circumstances, Canada can no longer maintain a diplomatic prescience in Tehran. Our diplomats serve Canada as civilians and their safety is my number one priority. Diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran have been suspended. All Canadian diplomatic staff have already left Iran and Iranian diplomats in Canada have been instructed to leave within five days. Canada has upgraded its travel reports and warnings to advise Canadians to avoid all travel to Iran. Canadians who have Iranian nationality are warned in particular that the Iranian regime does not recognize the principle of dual nationality. By doing so Iran makes it virtually impossible for our officials to provide consular assistance to Iranian Canadians in difficulty.
This is Baird’s more long winded excuse for removing the embassy staff. The reality is that it is just that, an excuse. His examples for Iranian transgressions against diplomatic missions included the United Kingdom and the United States. The latter displays the highest disregard for contextual truth as he cites the embassy take-over of 1979 and its hostage taking as the prime example of Iran’s defiance of the Vienna Convention on Embassies.
The whole Iranian mess started when the United Kingdom and the United States collaborated in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. The Shah was installed as the U.S. puppet regime leader, eventually being overthrown in 1979 when the citizens rebelled against his tyranny and torture.
It can be noted that when the United Kingdom threatened to invade the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Canada mentioned nothing about embassy sanctity then; nor does Baird relate that the United Kingdom, as the lapdog of the U.S., had cut all financial transactions to Iran and threatened them with military action as well.
Questions
A short series of question was asked, with Baird giving the usual talking points as well as introducing his answers with “Listen . . .” as though repetition would carry the truth of it over to the questioners who obviously had not understood him the first time.
Two questions are of note, the first about Russia.
Are you going to take the same tough line with the Russians as they have supported the Assad regime?
I’ve already had a meeting with my Russian counterpart and made it so in no uncertain terms.
Wonderful—Canada is throwing its world power status around by withdrawing its embassy from Russia . . . oh . . . its only tough language, no tough actions . . . ? The Russians must be quaking in their boots.
The response to the last question is almost laughable in its obvious contradictions and double standards.
Will the UN diplomat serve as Canadian envoy to Syria?
Listen, that appointment has just been made Obviously we want to strongly support every effort to stop the violence in Syria in Damascus. I think diplomacy has failed thus far—we can never give up trying to seek the end of the violence in Syria and justice for the Syrian people.
Support every effort for a diplomatic solution to the violence. . . . !!!! Great, wow! But did not you just close the embassy in Tehran and therefore cannot use diplomacy to seek an end to violence? So seeking the end of violence and achieving justice needs diplomatic exchange . . . which could only lead to the final conclusion:
Canada is prepping—alongside the U.S. and Israel, for an eventual attack on Iran.
They are looking for an increase in violence against Iran, without diplomacy. That is the real reason for withdrawing the embassy staff, in order to increase tensions and prepare the Canadian and global public for the Canadian regime’s support of either U.S. and/or Israeli attacks on Iran.
Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.
