How Today’s Iran Crisis Exposes Achilles Heel of Canadian Neocons

From The Canadian Patriot Review

Many Canadians have been rabble roused to extremes over revelations that Canadian Foreign Aid to Iran amounted to $2.5 million over 2018. Even though aid to other nations like Afghanistan, Syria and Ethiopia were magnitudes larger, a writer from the Canadian Action Party embodied a the worst of neocon bigotry asking HOW could Canada give any money to “a theocratic fundamentalist state, an oppressive Islamic government, as well as human rights abusing, anti-Christian society”? 

Such views of Iran completely ignore the fact that Iran hosts over 100 000 Christians who enjoy religious freedom to worship and additionally host another 12 000 Jews (the largest group in the Middle East outside of Israel) whose rabbis have recently stated to USA Today feel “safe and respected” in the nation which western press characterizes as driven to wipe all Jews off the map.

Iranian rabbi Nejat Golshirazi described the lives of Jews in Iran with the following words: “We have all the facilities we need for our rituals, and we can say our prayers very freely. We never have any problems. I can even tell you that, in many cases, we are more respected than Muslims.”

One dimensional anti-Iranian thinking is both popular across the American and Canadian populations, and reflects a total ignorance either to how the real world works or what Canada’s role is within it. Evangelicals polarized by such bigotry tend to lack any ability to recognize facts which conflict with their prejudices as they can only attack “Iran friendly liberals” like Obama or Trudeau while ignoring anything which those same liberals have done to advance imperial war on Iran or other Muslim nations more generally (including their support for Saudi-backed Wahhabi terrorists used in the overthrow of moderate Arab governments from Iraq to Libya and Syria). Most recently this agenda was reflected in the passage of Canada’s August 2019 law which directs money gained from the sale of Iranian-owned properties confiscated after Ottawa’s 2012 cancellation of all diplomatic contact with Iran to the victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.

When dealing with Canada and the globally extended British Empire (here I am not referring to the institutions of the British nation per se), the Iranian leadership has a pretty good assessment of the beast, and in the case of much of what Canada does on the international level, Iran recognizes that the purpose amounts to “psychological warfare”- whether it is Harper’s 2013 shutdown of all diplomatic contact with Iran or Trudeau’s current policy, the aim is the same: Use Canada’s reputation as the model of good governance, and polite hockey-loving moral righteousness towards rallying international support for imperial goals.

This is ultimately a game of British philosophical liberalism upon which today’s globalized world order is premised. Things can only move if the semblance of democracy underlies military, ecological and economic demands of the empire through the force of “popular opinion”. With the Goebbles-like controls on mainstream media, this popular opinion is rather easily directed to certain policy objectives that are not in the interest of any of those nations duped into believing and demanding for those policies of empire.

Canada’s role as a “middle power” as it’s currently understood was shaped by certain Rhodes Scholars and Fabians in the 1940s and 1950s like Escott Reid (who should be credited as the actual founding father of NATO), and put into practice in its current form by Pierre Trudeau who described his view of Canada’s role in international affairs as “creating counterweights”. To this very day, most people have no idea how to comprehend what the game was which Trudeau the elder saw Canada “balancing”, or for whom.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. His works appear regularly on The Duran, Strategic Culture, Sott, Fort Russ, Zero Hedge, Global Times, L.A. Review of Books, LeSaker.fr, Vigile Quebec, South Front and Veterans Today. He is a correspondent/BRI Expert for Tactical Talk. In 2019 Matthew co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation. He can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com