Closing The Door

"If I were to read anything into (the Canadian Embassy closing), I think it would be that Canada is preparing to take action against the IRGC  And in anticipation of that, they want all Canadian personnel out of the region so that they don't suffer any reprisals."  Shimon Fogel, Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs

Finally, then - in the wake of what has been occurring in Syria with Iran supporting a murderous regime that has been countering the attacks of rebels which, typical of the Middle East, are joined by those who are equally murderous - it seems that Canada will take steps to formally designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group.

While the EU rumbles ominously about further sanctions to ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran is very well aware of the disfavour in which their government is held, Canada has decided to withdraw diplomacy from its relationship with Iran.  There is quite simply something maddening about a country knowing it is held in deep disrepute by its behaviour, blithely overlooking the animus it has created internationally to continue to portray itself as a peace-loving, heritage-proud citizen-state of the world.

Relations between Canada and Iran have been frigid ever since the Iranian Revolution occurred when the American Embassy was overrun by religious zealots in 1979 and American diplomats were held hostage for a year and a half.  It was not long before Iranian refugees began appearing in Canada, seeking shelter from the oppression of their new government.

And when an Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist, Zahra Kazemi, was imprisoned on trumped-up charges of spying, and murdered by the regime in 2003, that spelled the end of any courtesies between the two countries.

Iran's reputation as a country with state-sanctioned brutalities and human rights abuses, is second only to its well-earned reputation as a sponsor of terrorism, and more latterly, for its defiance of world opinion, the UN and the IAEA in its determination to develop nuclear weapons.

The country's diplomats assigned to their embassy in Ottawa have been known to interfere in the lives of Iranian-Canadians many of whom feel threatened by their presence and have urged Ottawa to declare them persona-non-grata.  This has finally occurred, but not before the embassy with its creature group the Iranian Culture Association of Carleton University mounted a number of Iranian "cultural" events.

Events whose purpose has been to recruit Canadian Iranians back to the Islamist cause of their home country, and to call upon their loyalty to Iran and to Islam.  Not all Iranians living in Canada will be delighted with this turn of events, but it was a decision too long in coming, one that those dispatched to represent Iran within Canada seemed to take great pains in teasing into reality.

("According to a hostile decision by the government of Canada, we are closed and no longer working.")

But then, Iran never did shy away from expressing its scornful contempt of other countries and other religions, while demanding respect and admiration from others at the very time that its official policy has been to denigrate and to threaten.