Dirty Potty-Mouths

Canada has no formal diplomatic relations with Iran. Diplomacy has been at an abysmally low level since Canadian-Iranian Zahra Kazemi, visiting her country of birth in 2003, was slammed into Evin prison for taking unauthorized photographs of a student protest; tortured, raped and murdered, her body never released to her family. Needless to say, Canada has many other reasons not to wish to to be seen having friendly relations with a country whose human-rights abuses are legendary.

Much less one whose rhetoric includes an existential warning against a UN-member-state, and Middle East neighbour. Canada has a sizeable population of Baha'i, and Iran's offences against the Baha'i, homosexuals, political dissenters and women marks it as a social pariah. The country has much to account for, in its unsettling threat to world peace, with its defiance of United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines and imposed sanctions.

Yet somehow, it transpires that Iran's vice-president, Esfandiar Rahaim Mashaie has been granted a visitor's visa to enter Canada. It's an unofficial visit, purportedly to encourage the government to consider the possibility that diplomatic ties be re-established. Mr. Mashaie contends that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan has damaged Canada's reputation in that area of the world. He's concerned for us.

"This idea that Canada has a military presence in Afghanistan has a very negative impact and affect in the public opinion of hundreds of millions of people in the region", he stated at a news conference in Ottawa. "The experience of Canada in Afghanistan has not been a good one, a positive one in terms of security", he said. He's right there; Iran's supplying of more sophisticated weaponry to the Taliban has translated into additional Canadian military mortalities.

Mr. Mashaie is critical of Canada's government for characterizing Iran as "evil" which, according to him demonstrates "huge weakness" on the part of Prime Minister Harper. Interesting perception; we'd been celebrating the "huge courage and determination" of our current, Conservative Prime Minister. Who so recently informed the Wall Street Journal:

"It concerns me that we have a regime (in Tehran) with ... an ideology that is obviously evil. My government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel and considers the Iranian threats to be absolutely unacceptable and beyond the pale." As for Iran's Ahmadinejad's pronouncements on March 6 at the "International Conference in Tehran Support of Palestine, the following speaks volumes:

In his speech, he said: "In the period of weakness of the peoples, the front of the professional murderers and plunderers [global Zionism in collaboration with the West] ruled the world for some 200 years, and even the massacre of some 100 million people in two world wars did not soothe their loathsome spirit. "With advance planning, and step by step, they carried out the greatest fraud of all [i.e. the Holocaust] and the ugliest crimes in history [the establishment of the State of Israel and its actions]. The story of the Holocaust, of the 'nation without a homeland and homeland without a nation,' the false religion of Zionism, and the Zionists' making themselves the objects of pity are the greatest lies of our era, and they constitute a prelude to crimes and occupation..."
"The Zionist mission is to constantly threaten [the world], to prevent the advancement of the nations, to prepare the ground for a takeover of the region and of the world by those superpowers, to sow division [amongst the Muslim nations], to prepare [the ground] for the Western weapons sales market, to plunder the resources of the oppressed peoples, and even to take over the peoples of Europe and America.
"The problem of the Zionist regime is not an Arab-Zionist problem, a Jewish-Islamic problem, or a Middle East problem. This regime's establishment and continued existence is an insult to the intelligence, the honor, and the virtue of the man of our time. All decent people see the existence of this regime as against the rights of humanity. Zionism is not a religion, but a philosophy and an official path, with satanic goals. The Zionists are not Jews, Christians, or people of any other religion. They lack all culture and all human traits.
"The Zionist front is a party with a cadre numbering at the most 2,000, and with several thousand operatives, who are taking over the [world's] financial, political, and media centers, and parts of the governments of Europe and America.
"Most unfortunately, there are some who still do not believe that the Zionist regime seeks merely occupation and violating human rights, and that its raison d'être is only to sow corruption, division, spoilage, and threats, and that this is the reason for its continued crimes and attacks....

Furthermore, what are we to make of this peace-loving country's dedication to achieving nuclear armaments? Russia's invaluable assistance to Iran over the years have ensured it could achieve nuclear sufficiency; its helpfulness in supplying Iran with sophisticated missiles and emerging state-of-the-art technology to launch nuclear-tipped missiles clutches the world with fear of lunacy unleashed.

Vladimir Dvorkin, head of a strategic arms research centre at the Russian Academy of Sciences has now validated what the world fears, that Iran is capable of producing an atomic weapon in "one or two years. In the technical sense, what may be holding them back is the lack of enough weapons-grade uranium", he said. "I consider this a significant threat", giving his personal views, independent of Moscow.

Do we need, want or see our way clear to reviving diplomacy between Canada and present-day Iran? Hardly.