The United States and Israel are in the midst of a regime change attempt in Iran.
Politicians and media outlets in Canada have sought to sell us this dangerous war by portraying it as vital to international security. We should not be deceived.
The ostensible justification for the war — which may be paused by a ceasefire — is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons. Concerns about Iran doing so because of Netanyahu’s statements have also been voiced by United States President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Let’s side aside for a moment that Netanyahu is currently the leader of a state committing genocide — and that he is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes — and focus on the fact that he’s a liar.
Netanyahu has been warning since 1992 that Iran is either years or weeks away from having a nuclear bomb. No such bomb has materialized over the past three decades, nor did one appear to be on the horizon prior to Israel’s unprovoked June 13 attack, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The same can’t be said for the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. is the only state to have ever used nuclear weapons during a war, and currently has more than 5,200 of them. Israel is the only state in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, with most experts estimating it has at least 90. It is also not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor has it accepted IAEA inspections or safeguards, unlike Iran.
Canada has voted against Israel renouncing possession of nuclear weapons at the United Nations. Canadian politicians and media have implied that it’s fine for Israel to have nuclear weapons but not OK for Iran, and tried to mask this as being because of their respective behaviours. No such case can be made.
Israel is undoubtedly the more violent and unhinged force in the region. Since October 2023 alone, it has attacked Iran, Yemen, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. Iran, meanwhile, has solely responded to unprovoked and illegal acts of aggression against it.
Israel is also widely known to subscribe to the Samson Option, a nuclear policy that departs from the more-standard approach of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
The director of the Arms Control Association has stated, “‘MAD is designed to deter war or prevent war from escalating to nuclear use [...] The Samson Option is not designed to deter a nuclear adversary from a first strike or counter strike—Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the region. Rather, its purported purpose is to ensure Israel’s survival. Under the Samson Option, nuclear weapons would be deliberately used against a non-nuclear adversary as a last resort to prevent an Israeli defeat.’”
Regardless of the cases that can be made for Iran and Israel, the only truly defensible approach to the matter of whether states can possess nuclear weapons is that all states should completely and permanently denuclearize or that every state has a legitimate claim to develop its own. There’s no indication of the former happening, so Western states, particularly those that have thousands of nuclear weapons, have no right to call on the countries it boasts about wanting to destroy to not develop them.
Though Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went as far as issuing a fatwa in 2003 against developing them, some political factions in the country support of the idea. Any reasonable person should be able to see why that’s the case.
It has nothing to do with Iran wanting to launch rogue, pre-emptive attacks on Israelis, Americans or your next-door neighbour. Instead, nuclear weapons have proven to be a way for governments targeted by the West to survive.
They are perhaps the main reason why the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remains alive, and their absence a major cause for former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi being overthrown, sodomized with a blade, and then killed, and the country he led being destroyed (with the Canadian government’s support, and the cheerleading of its media).
This desire is also more understandable now than ever before. As writer Paris Marx has asked, “How does [Carney] expect Iran to trust the bargaining table when the US ended the JCPOA, Israel killed its negotiator, and the US says recent diplomacy was a ruse?”
Rather than preventing the development of more nuclear weapons, the U.S.-Israeli regime change attempt may prompt Iran to withdraw from the NPT, stop co-operating with the IAEA, end decades of attempts at diplomacy and move forward with a nuclear program.
If that happens to be the case, I can’t blame Iran. Western heads of states have argued Iran obtaining nuclear weapons would threaten regional stability. The region is not stable. Iran developing these weapons would only threaten Israeli dominance, which would be a net positive. The region would have been better off had Iran gotten nuclear weapons a long time ago.
The argument put forward by Canadian politicians that Iran should not have nuclear weapons because of its behaviour but Israel should is a ruse. It’s clear these figures are motivated solely by wanting to further U.S.-Israeli geopolitical interests in the region, which they see as our own. In fact, some have outright stated it’s fine if the U.S. and Israel have nuclear weapons because they’re Canadian allies, whereas Iran is not.
It’s certainly true that Canada and Iran have an adversarial relationship, with no diplomatic ties existing between the two since 2012. It’s also true that the Canadian government has long considered the U.S. and Israel as allies. However, that doesn’t mean it will always be the case, that it should be the case and that Canadians actually agree with the government.
There’s no love for Israel among the Canadian public. A June Leger poll found that a plurality of 42 per cent of Canadians with an opinion on the matter believe “Canada is too supportive of Israel,” an increase of 10 percentage points since October 2023. The poll also found that a plurality of 45 per cent of Canadians (and 69 per cent of those who said ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’) agree Israel is committing genocide.
General public sentiment in Canada has also become increasingly and significantly anti-American since Trump returned to office in January, and there’s no sign that things will return to how they once were. For example, an April POLITICO/Focaldata poll found that 49 per cent of Canadians see the U.S. as either unfriendly or hostile, compared to just 28 per cent that see it as friendly or an ally.
Canadians no longer see the U.S. as an ally, much less an ally to whose actions we will or should offer our blanket support.
Some point to anti-Americanism within Iran, as exemplified by the prevalence of the “Death to America” chant, as a reason for its government to be toppled.
This chant, as Khamenei has explained, is not a call for the death of the American people: “It goes without saying that the slogan does not mean death to the American nation; this slogan means death to the U.S.’s policies, death to arrogance.”
Regardless, I’d ask you to have a moment of serious reflection on the sort of rhetoric you’ve heard about Trump and the U.S. from Canadians since January, perhaps even those who previously seemed apolitical or generally friendly toward the American political system. I’ve been stunned by some of what I’ve heard.
Now imagine that if instead of issuing vague threats of annexation and implementing tariffs, the U.S. had conspired to overthrow a widely popular prime minister, supported the unpopular dictator it helped to install, sanctioned Canada for decades leading to a far-worse quality of life for us all, assassinated some of our most popular and respected leaders, provided military support to a state that invaded us and used chemical weapons against you and your neighbours, openly told millions of us to flee from the cities we call home overnight, and so much more.
What do you think Canadians would say then? Would you believe that sort of rhetoric to be unjustified? Would you claim Canada’s political system should be toppled by the U.S. because of it? And do you think a Canadian leader that reflected anti-American sentiment back to us would have their popularity increase or decline? Though it’s far from a 1:1 comparison, the results of this year’s federal election should offer a hint.
Moving beyond the rhetoric, some say the Iranian government sponsors organizations Canada has designated as terrorist entities. This is true in a broad sense, though framing these organizations as Iranian proxies is incorrect.
Regardless, the Canadian government considering these groups to be terrorist entities is not an expression of some sort of essential truth. Instead, it’s the culmination of a political process whereby the government of one country has determined forces in another currently meet a certain, though vague and unspecified, legal definition.
Take, for example, former South African president Nelson Mandela. He once led an organization labelled as a terrorist group by Western states, whose members were imprisoned and barred from entering certain countries. He is now widely celebrated.
You may believe Mandela is an exceptional case. I don’t think so.
For one, the organizations in question are already only designated as terrorist entities by a tiny minority of the world’s countries, despite what mainstream rhetoric in Canada would have you believe. They are welcomed as freedom fighters by the population and governments of many others. Many of these organizations, as well as the Iranian state, also played a key role in dismantling ISIS, perhaps the most notorious terror organization to have existed.
But more importantly, Israel is currently undertaking a genocide in Gaza, committing crimes far worse than whatever can be levelled against Iran or the groups it has sponsored. Canada can label Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, but Canada is a state sponsor of genocide, and the U.S. and Israel are the parties outright committing it.
It’s also an objective fact that the groups Iran supports have been the only ones taking concrete, military action to stop the genocide in Gaza on behalf of or in solidarity with Palestinians. It should make Canadians uncomfortable that they are the only ones doing so, while our government and its allies are complicit in or actively responsible for the genocide.
So, has Iran funded, armed and helped train some organizations the Canadian government considers to be terrorists? Absolutely. But it’s also true that the Iranian government has funded, armed and helped train the only forces in the world truly attempting to stop a genocide.
Iran’s activities in the region, then, are not a good reason to cheer on the destruction of its government. In fact, they help explain why many around the world have a favourable view of the state.
Another line of defence for the joint Israeli-American assault on Iran has been that it will make life safer for Israelis, which is in Canada’s interest because of Israeli Canadians.
I don’t think many Canadians are particularly concerned about the interests of a population that repeatedly expresses outright support for the extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, so I’ll look at the bigger picture.
Canada had a population of about 35,345 Israelis in 2021, according to that year’s census. Meanwhile, the same census recorded 200,465 Iranians and 80,340 Persians. The number of Iranians in Canada far outweighs the number of Israelis, and their lives and the lives of their family that remain in Iran matter just as much.
This is not the impression given by the statements many politicians have made thus far, however, which rarely mention Iranians, much less express support for them or concern for their safety. If they do, this support hinges on whether they adhere to U.S.-Israeli demands or not.
For example, on June 13, Conservative Party leader and former MP Pierre Poilievre tweeted, “Israel has the right to defend itself—including by disarming Tehran’s genocidal nuclear program. It cannot wait until the regime has capabilities for a nuclear strike. We should all hope that this is the end of the regime’s nuclear program and that the great Persian people can now rise up to reclaim their country from the totalitarian regime. All levels of government must take extra steps to protect Canada’s Jewish community from vile antisemites who may use these events as an excuse for more acts of violence.”
So, Israel has the right to attack whoever it wants whenever it wants to further the interests of its Jewish citizens, and the Canadian government should act to protect Jews in Canada from unspecified threats. As per Iranians, both here and in Iran? It seems that according to Poilievre, they deserve whatever Israel and its supporters give them until and unless they abide by the political dictates of an unelected Canadian official.
Some will say that many in Canada’s Iranian community, and within Iran itself, oppose the government, so Canada supporting the U.S.-Israeli war is caring about them. But there are a few things to consider.
- The attacks on Iran have had the effect of bringing its people together, including some of the government’s harshest critics;
- Israel’s attacks have killed hundreds of civilians in Iran and disrupted the lives of millions of others, including those who oppose the government;
- Iran’s political future should be determined by Iranians in Iran, not Western leaders.
We’ve also seen countless examples of political systems being toppled after Western intervention and the resulting chaos making things worse. Perhaps the most infamous example of this is in Iraq, the war on which was marketed in a similar manner to how Iran is being discussed.
We’ve seen the script. We know what will happen. Those in power simply do not care. In fact, the chaos is what they want, because it benefits Israeli and American political interests in the region.
But the interests of the ruling class in the U.S. and Israel are not ours.
We should not be deceived. We must oppose this war, and stand with Iran as it fights an existential battle against the U.S., a Canadian enemy, and Israel, a state committing the worst crimes the world has seen in decades.
