In perhaps his boldest foreign policy move during his presidency, Barack Obama Wednesday announced that he intends to establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba.
While the president noted that he lacked the authority to lift the 54-year-old trade embargo against Havana, he issued directives that will permit more American citizens to travel there and third-country subsidiaries of US companies to engage in commerce. Other measures include the launching a review of whether Havana should remain on the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” The president also said he looked forward to engaging Congress in “an honest and serious debate about lifting the embargo.”
“In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” said Obama in a nationally televised announcement.
“Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people, and begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”
The announcement, which was preceded by a secret, 45-minute telephone conversation Tuesday morning between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, drew both praise from those who have long argued that Washington’s pursuit of Cuba’s isolation has been a total failure and bitter denunciations from right-wing Republicans. Some of them vowed, among other things, to oppose any effort to lift the embargo, open the US embassy in Havana, or confirm a US ambassador to serve there. (Washington has had an Interest Section in the Cuban capital since 1977.)
“Today’s announcement initiating a dramatic change in US policy is just the latest in a long line of failed attempts by President Obama to appease rogue regimes at all costs,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, one of a number of fiercely anti-Castro Cuban-American lawmakers and a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.
“I intend to use my role as incoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Western Hemisphere subcommittee to make every effort to block this dangerous and desperate attempt by the President to burnish his legacy at the Cuba people’s expense,” he said in a statement. “Appeasing the Castro brothers will only cause other tyrants from Caracas to Tehran to Pyongyang to see that they can take advantage of President Obama’s naiveté during his final two years in office.”
The outgoing Democratic chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, also decried Obama’s announcement. “The United States has just thrown the Cuban regime an economic lifeline,” he said.
“With the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, Cuba is losing its main benefactor, but will now receive the support of the United States, the greatest democracy in the world,” said Menendez, who is also Cuban-American.
But other lawmakers hailed the announcement.
Today President Obama and President Raul Castro made history,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a senior Democrat and one of three lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who escorted Alan Gross, a US Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor, from Havana Wednesday morning as part of a larger prisoner and spy swap that precipitated the announcement.
“Those who cling to a failed policy (and) …may oppose the President’s actions have nothing to offer but more of the same. That would serve neither the interests of the United States and its people, nor of the Cuban people,” Leahy said. “It is time for a change.”
Other analysts also lauded Obama’s Wednesday’s developments, comparing them to historic breakthroughs with major foreign policy consequences.
“Obama has chosen to change the entire framework of the relationship, as (former President Richard) Nixon did when he travelled to China,” said William LeoGrande, a veteran Cuba scholar at American University, in an email from Havana. “Many issues remain to be resolved, but the new direction of US policy is clear.”
Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based hemispheric think tank that has long urged Washington to normalize ties with Havana, told IPS the regional implications would likely be very positive.
“Obama’s decision will be cheered and applauded throughout Latin America,” he said.
“The Cuba issue has sharply divided Washington from the rest of the hemisphere for decades, and this move, long overdue, goes a long way towards removing a key major source of irritation in US-Latin American relations,” Shifter said.
Obama also announced Wednesday that he will attend the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama in April. Castro had also been officially invited, over the objections of both the US and Canada, at the last Summit in Cartagena in 2012, so there had been some speculation that Obama might boycott the proceedings.
Harvard international relations expert Stephen Walt said he hoped that Wednesday’s announcement portends additional bold moves by Obama on the world stage in his last two years as president despite the control of both houses of Congress by Republicans.
“One may hope that this decision will be followed by renewed efforts to restore full diplomatic relations with even more important countries, most notably Iran,” he told IPS in an email.
“Recognition does not imply endorsing a foreign government’s policies; it simply acknowledges that U.S. interests are almost always well served by regular contact with allies and adversaries alike,” he said.
Administration officials told reporters that Wednesday’s developments were made possible by 18 months of secret talks between senior official from both sides—not unlike those carried out in Oman between the US and Iran prior to their landmark November 2013 agreement with five other world powers on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Officials credited Pope Francis, an Argentine, with a key role in prodding both parties toward an accord.
“The Holy Father wishes to express his warm congratulations for the historic decision taken by the Governments of the United States of America and Cuba to establish diplomatic relations, with the aim of overcoming, in the interest of the citizens of both countries, the difficulties which have marked their recent history,” the Vatican said in a statement Wednesday.
The Vatican’s strong endorsement could mute some of the Republican and Cuban-American criticism of normalization and make it more difficult for Rubio and his colleagues to prevent the establishment of an embassy and appointment of an ambassador, according to some Capitol Hill staff.
Similarly, major US corporations, some of whom, particularly in the agribusiness and consumer goods sectors, have seen major market potential in Cuba, are likely to lobby their allies on the Republican side.
“We deeply believe that an open dialogue and commercial exchange between the US and Cuban private sectors will bring shared benefits, and the steps announced today will go a long way in allowing opportunities for free enterprise to flourish,” said Thomas Donohue, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce in a statement. Donohue headed what he called an unprecedented “exploratory” trip to Cuba earlier this year.
“Congress now has a decision to make,” said Jake Colvin, the vice president for global trade issues at the National Foreign Trade Council, an association of many of the world’s biggest multi-national corporations. “It can either show that politics stops at the water’s edge, or insist that the walls of the Cold War still exist.”
Wednesday’s announcement came in the wake of an extraordinary series of editorials by the New York Times through this autumn in favour of normalization and the lifting of the trade embargo.
In another sign of a fundamental shift here, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose husband Bill took some steps to ease the embargo during his tenure as president, disclosed in her book published last summer that she had urged Obama to “take another look at our embargo. It wasn’t achieving its goals, and it was holding back our broader agenda across Latin America.”
That stance, of course, could alienate some Cuban-American opinion, especially in the critical “swing state” of Florida if Clinton runs in the 2016 election. But recent polls of Cuban-Americans have suggested an important generational change in attitudes toward Cuba and normalization within the Cuban-American community, with the younger generation favoring broader ties with their homeland.
Photo: Alan Gross talks with President Obama onboard a government plane headed back to the US, Dec. 17, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson
]]>Anti-Western protests across the Arab Islamic world denouncing the anti-Islam video, reportedly produced in the United States, is a serious test for the new democratic governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere.
It is time for the new Arab democracies to explain to their peoples publicly and forcefully that [...]]]>
Anti-Western protests across the Arab Islamic world denouncing the anti-Islam video, reportedly produced in the United States, is a serious test for the new democratic governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere.
It is time for the new Arab democracies to explain to their peoples publicly and forcefully that individual actions in Western countries, no matter how offensive, do not reflect the policies of Western societies or their governments.
Western societies are diverse and complex and like Muslim societies should not be held responsible for the acts of one or more extremists, even if such acts are insulting to religion or the holy text.
Budding Arab democracies are producing diverse new leaders, ideologies, and centres of power, which their former dictators had stifled for decades. If Arab democracy hopes to succeed, it should not be a welcoming place for the narrow-minded, exclusivist Salafi ideology, which preaches hate and intolerance. Arab governments must act decisively to curb the rising tide of radical Salafism in their midst.
At least four factors are driving ongoing mass protests across the region. First, the newfound sense of democracy and empowerment, which former dictators kept under a tight lid, gives people the freedom to hit the streets whenever they see the urge to express their views on an issue. Once they get used to the idea of freedom of assembly, Arab publics would be less inclined to leave their jobs and hit the streets regardless of the cause.
Second, pervasive anti-Americanism, which has carried over from the (George W.) Bush to the (Barack) Obama administration because of perceived anti-Islamic policies, has been an undercurrent in the latest demonstrations.
Third, radical Salafis, who oppose what they call man-made democracy and peaceful relations with the West, have used the protests to undermine the nascent democratic experiment in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, and stir up anti-Western feelings in the Arab “street”. Salafi so-called jihadists have also been trying to hijack the anti-Assad revolution in Syria and paint it with the brush of extremism.
Finally, Al-Qaeda and its franchise groups in Yemen, North Africa, Iraq, and elsewhere have tried to use street protests to mask their terrorist plots against Arab regimes and Western personnel and interests in the region.
As Arab democracy takes root, governments must educate their citizens on the nature of Western democracies and the freedoms of speech, expression, and association that are the hallmark of democratic societies anywhere in the world.
Anti-religious vitriol and hate speech against Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, or Sikhs in the United States, for example, are usually renounced by most of the faithful. But they are begrudgingly tolerated, even by American Muslims, as part of the cultural and political mosaic of life in the United States.
For years, my analysts and I briefed senior policymakers that the Muslim world is diverse and complex and that only a small minority of them are extremists and terrorists. We judged vast majorities of the 1.6 billion Muslims are mainstreamers and reject the terrorist narrative, which Osama Bin Ladin and Al-Qaeida have advocated in the name of Islam.
We assessed that in the service of our national interest, our leaders should not paint the entire Muslim world with a broad brush of terrorism. Presidents Bush and Obama, for the most part, accepted the analysis and acted on it. They frequently stated the war on Al-Qaeida and global terrorism was not a war against Islam and that the West and the Muslim world share many common values.
By the same token, violent demonstrations and wanton destruction by volatile groups, many of whom have not even seen the offensive You Tube video, could lead some in the West to view the entire Muslim world as a place short on rational discourse and long on mob frenzy.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the anti-Islam amateurish video in the strongest terms. She emphasised the U.S. government and people have nothing to do with it and abhor its content and message.
While not much open source information is available on the tragic death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, the orchestration of the attack and weapons used reflect Al-Qaeda’s mode of operations. The terror organisation’s affiliated or franchise groups have executed similar operations in the region.
What is most tragic about the ambassador’s untimely death was his genuine commitment, in word and in deed, to engaging in a serious dialogue with Muslims.
He believed that Americans and Muslims shared many values, including love of family and a commitment to fairness and justice. Unfortunately, radical elements in those demonstrations whether Salafis or Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, oppose dialogue and view the non-Muslim West as “infidels”.
Most mainstream Muslims do not share this view and in fact welcome economic, political, and cultural relations with Western countries, including with the United States. Thousands of Muslim students are studying in colleges and universities in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Western Europe.
Radical Salafi leaders and preachers who have condoned, encouraged, and participated in violence and destruction in the recent demonstrations should be held accountable by their governments for the deaths, injuries, and property destruction that have occurred. Because of their tyrannical ideology and actions, these radical Salafi leaders and activists have lost the right to take part in the democratic transition.
Millions of Arabs marched in the streets last year denouncing the repression of their regimes. Fallen dictators used fear and torture to deny their people the most basic human and civil rights. They kidnapped, jailed, and killed pro-democracy writers, poets, filmmakers, comedians, and bloggers despite the peacefulness of their demands.
Radical Salafis must not be allowed to hijack the newly won democratic rights.
The new social media, which helped spread the message of hope and optimism during the heady days of the Arab Spring, unfortunately has a downside. The “Innocence of Islam” video is the latest symbol of that side.
- Emile Nakhleh is former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of ‘A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World’.
]]>Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: The neoconservative pundit attacks the Obama administration for not aligning its “red line” [...]]]>
Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: The neoconservative pundit attacks the Obama administration for not aligning its “red line” on Iran (a nuclear weapon), with Israel’s red line (nuclear weapon-making capability) and not adhering to Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for a deadline:
The Obama policy is in shambles. Which is why Cordesman argues that the only way to prevent a nuclear Iran without war is to establish a credible military threat to make Iran recalculate and reconsider. That means U.S. red lines: deadlines beyond which Washington will not allow itself to be strung, as well as benchmark actions that would trigger a response, such as the further hardening of Iran’s nuclear facilities to the point of invulnerability and, therefore, irreversibility.
Which made all the more shocking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s dismissal last Sunday of the very notion of any U.S. red lines. No deadlines. No bright-line action beyond which Iran must not go. The sleeping giant continues to slumber. And to wait — as the administration likes to put it, “for Iran to live up to its international obligations.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: The board shares Krauthammer’s analysis:
Most of all, Iran continues its march toward a nuclear weapon despite the President’s vow that it is “unacceptable.” The U.S. says it has isolated Iran, but only last month the U.N. Secretary-General defied a U.S. plea and attended a non-aligned summit in Tehran. The Administration has issued wholesale exemptions to Congressional sanctions, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared on the weekend that the U.S. is “not setting deadlines” for Iran as it sprints to a bomb.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has engaged in repeated public arguments with Israel, supposedly its best ally in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, recently declared that he doesn’t want to be “complicit” in any Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. The White House failed to contradict him. A nation that appears so reluctant to stand by its friends won’t be respected or feared by its enemies.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The neoconservative pundit laments the fact that Israel’s Prime Minister must resort to “heckling” the US president to get what he wants and quotes a staffer from the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies to further her position on the Israel vs. Iran debate:
Such is the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship. The tussle over who requested what begs the question as to why the leaders aren’t meeting in New York. If the relationship is as close as Obama insists, there would be every reason to meet, make a show of solidarity and make a joint statement regarding Iran. So Netanyahu resorts to heckling Obama in public over “red lines.”
Schanzer said, “ The real problem here is the lack of transparency on the part of President Obama. When was the last time he delivered an official presidential statements on the Iranian nuclear crisis? He has not given the American people or the Israelis a glimpse of how he plans to tackle what has become the most pressing foreign policy issue of our time. This is what is driving Bibi to his wits end. “
So how is that leading from behind, timidity in the face of jihadists, meekness toward Iran and heavy defense cut policy working out? Are we more safe or are events spinning out of control? Are we most respected or less? The answer: Romney is being unfair pointing all this out.
Danielle Pletka, the New York Times: Explictly hawkish views and recommendation stated here by the vice president for foreign and defense policy at the neoconservative-dominated American Enterprise Institute:
America cannot prevent every tragedy, nor can we assure ourselves of the affection of every Middle Eastern citizen. But we can have a policy in Iraq that fights Iranian influence, a policy in Egypt that incentivizes liberalism among elected leaders, a policy in Syria that hastens the fall of Assad and promotes the rise of moderates, a policy that punishes attacks on our embassies that take place unimpeded by the local government (see Egypt), and a policy that rewards the values we cherish and punishes extremism. And yes, those policies can go hand in hand with a military strategy that attacks our enemies where they live. We may not always win the fight of western liberalism against Islamist extremism, but we could try much harder.
David Makovsky, the New Yorker: Ali Gharib points out why an argument made by David Makovsky of the AIPAC-created Washington Institute — that Israel’s bombing of Syria’s nuclear program should be factored into calculations about attacking Iran’s program — doesn’t stand up to an important test.
]]>News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a safehouse in the coastal city of Benghazi.
The attack, which occurred shortly after the US embassy in Cairo was stormed by a mob, was ostensibly staged over an anti-Islamic film that has been publicized in the US. It is also possible that the demonstration in Benghazi over the film served as “cover” for a pre-planned assault on the compound:
The attack was believed to have been carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-style Sunni Islamist group that has been active in Benghazi, a Libyan security official said. Witnesses said the mob also included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen.
The Islamist militia denied it had taken part in the assault on the compound, which AFP suggests was strangely well-coordinated given the fact that the film cited as the reason for the demonstration had not been publicized for very long. Unknown persons set up a firebase in a nearby farm to support the men who breached the walls and set fire to the buildings:
Ansar al-Sharia cars arrived at the start of the protest but left once fighting started, Hamam said. “The protesters were running around the compound just looking for Americans, they just wanted to find an American so they could catch one.”
“U.S. Suspects Libya Attack Was Planned”: The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration has reason to believe the attack in Libya was preplanned – it is not clear if the assault in Egypt is also being investigated for premeditated actions – by al Qaeda sympathizers. The US announced it was pursuing an investigation but had no firm evidence yet:
If it were established that the deaths of the American diplomats resulted not from the spontaneous anger of a crowd about an insult to Islam but from a long-planned Qaeda plot, that might sharply shift perceptions of the events. But officials cautioned that the issue was still under urgent study.
The White House would not comment. “At this stage, it would be premature to ascribe any motive to this reprehensible act,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.
But according to comments reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Libya’s Deputy Minister of the Interior Wanis al-Sharif has suggested that there was a link between the attack and the announcement yesterday –posted on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 by al Qaeda’s official As-Sahab news outlet – that Ayman al-Zawahri’s deputy, the Libyan national Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan.
Al-Zawahri, the Associated Press reports, “urged Libyans — al-Libi was born in the north African country — to attack Americans to avenge the late militant’s death, saying his ‘blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill the Crusaders.’”
The Deputy Minister of the Interior has subsequently blamed the American government for not taking precautions over this announcement. The US government has yet to respond to this apparent attempt by al-Sharif to deflect blame for the attack’s successful penetration of the embassy grounds after the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards stationed there abandoned their posts.
“Romney Campaign Denies Acting Rashly on Libyan Situation”: The National Journal reports that the Republican Party is deflecting criticism from both parties over their presidential nominee’s assertions that Obama was “sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions.”
Romney’s comments referred to a statement, now since walked back, by the US embassy in Cairo condemning the anti-Islamic film for inciting hate. The statement was released shortly before a mob converged on the compound and scaled the wall, but at a press conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Mitt Romney painted the embassy’s statement as a response to the attack after it happened rather than to the film before the protest took place.
Ben Smith reports that in addition to cited condemnations coming from Democrats, Republican foreign policy experts have voiced dismay over Romney making his remarks before more reports were available to judge what had happened in Cairo.
But the campaign has hit back on the criticism of its actions, with Romney not retracting his initial remarks and instead telling reporters that “it’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”
Statements published by Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post – whose editorial board strongly criticized Romney’s remarks – show that several of Romney’s hawkish advisors, most notably former UN ambassador John Bolton, are rallying to his defense and blaming the media for mischaracterizing their candidate’s remarks.
And according to the National Journal, other “senior Romney advisers, who would not speak on the record,” are practicing damage control by presenting the remarks as part of:
]]>“[t]he larger point of Romney’s statement, which accused the administration of initially siding with protesters in Cairo, was that Obama is misreading the violent underbelly of the Arab Spring and jeopardizing U.S. interests in the region.
“This was a story that was building the entire day,” a senior Romney official said of the developments that took place late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. …. [a]nd the statement was about the consistent failure of this administration to engage constructively with the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”
via The Majalla
Recently, the Canadian government severed ties with Iran, citing threats to its diplomats in Tehran. While Israel has hailed the decision as a “clarion call to action”, few Canadian diplomats are convinced.
It is not too often that I find myself nodding in agreement with the rhetoric [...]]]>
via The Majalla
Recently, the Canadian government severed ties with Iran, citing threats to its diplomats in Tehran. While Israel has hailed the decision as a “clarion call to action”, few Canadian diplomats are convinced.
It is not too often that I find myself nodding in agreement with the rhetoric being spouted by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi. But on Monday, when Salehi decried Canada’s surprise decision on 7 September to sever diplomatic relations with Iran, describing Prime Minister Steven Harper’s government as “neo-conservative extremist[s]”, I could not agree more. Canada’s abrupt decision to sever relations with Iran has left myself and many others scratching their heads, asking why?
The Canadian government’s rationale for severing of relations with Iran was contained in a statement released by Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, last Friday. It offers the following explanation for severing ties: “The Iranian regime is providing increasing military assistance to the [Syrian] regime; it refuses to comply with UN resolutions pertaining to its nuclear program; it routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide; it is among the world’s worst violators of human rights; and it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups”.
This statement is a bit confusing. While it is fair to criticize Iran for its support for Bashar al-Assad, its failure to adhere to UN resolutions on its nuclear program, its support for Hizbollah and Hamas, and its poor human rights record, I fail to see how Canada’s foreign policy has anything to do Iran’s rhetorical jousting with Israel. Even the Obama administration is trying to distance itself from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s hysterical rhetoric about Iran. And since when has Iran incited anyone to commit genocide? There is simply no factual basis for this claim and underscores just how out of touch with reality the Harper government really is.
Another reason cited for the severing of ties is Iran’s “blatant disregard for the Vienna Convention and its guarantee of protection for diplomatic personnel…. Our diplomats serve Canada as civilians, and their safety is our number one priority.” Of course ensuring the safety of your diplomats is a priority, but when have our diplomats in Tehran ever been in danger?
Certainly, Ottawa has not had glowing relations with Tehran. Indeed, following Canada’s involvement in exfiltrating six American diplomats, including the U.S. Charge d’Affairs, Bruce Laingan, from Iran at the start of the Iranian hostage crisis in November 1979, Iran expelled Canadian diplomats for eight years. In 1991, Canada and Iran resumed diplomatic relations, but did not exchange ambassadors until 1996. This was all part of a policy that Canadian diplomats called “controlled engagement”, with the Liberal government of Jean Chretien believing that while some form of dialogue was necessary to express Canadian concerns over Iran’s deplorable human rights record, its nuclear program, and its opposition to the peace process. It also allowed Canadian diplomats to be on the ground. But Canadian-Iranian relations underwent a chill in 2003 when a Canadian photojournalist, Zahra Kazemi, was arrested and beaten to death while in custody. While Canada described the death as “state-sanctioned murder” and recalled its ambassador from Iran, it still maintained its embassy in Tehran, albeit with a small staff. It was not until 2007, when Tehran kicked out Canada’s ambassador, John Mundy, in retaliation for Ottawa’s rejection of two of its nominees for ambassador. Since then, Canada has maintained a small diplomatic team in Tehran. This sequence of events suggests that even though Canada and Iran have had a tumultuous relationship since reestablishing relations in 1988, through thick and thin, Canadian policymakers have consistently felt it wise to maintain the embassy in Tehran.
Part of the reason for this stems from the depth of Canada’s cultural ties to Iran. Next to the US, Canada has the largest expatriate Iranian community, with some 120,000 Canadians of Iranian ancestry and 400,000 Iranians living in Canada. But the severing of ties also makes it incredibly difficult for Canadians to travel to Iran and for those already inside Iran to receive consular services.
Now, imagine yourself under arrest in Iran, accused of spying for your country, and having been sentenced to death, when suddenly your country abandons you, leaving you with no help and no ties to your homeland or family. This is exactly the scenario of what has just happened to two Canadians, Hamid Ghassemi-Shall and Saeed Malekpour. Worse yet, the Harper government’s actions could potentially put these two at great risk, as the Iran’s leaders assess their retaliatory options. While Harper pledged that his government will continued “to aid our citizens [in Iran] in co-operation with our partners and allies in the democratic world,” that is simply not enough. The Harper government has recklessly abandoned two of its citizens.
On Saturday, I wrote a letter to the editor at the Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading national newspaper, to condemn the Harper government’s move. In my letter, I argued that Canada’s decision was based the Harper government’s “narrow-minded ideology and not a realpolitik calculation of national interests. Indeed, if it were the latter, Canadian diplomats would be allowed to continue observing and reporting on the internal dynamics of this incredibly important country.”
Since having my letter published, at least three former Canadian ambassadors, two of which were ambassador to Iran, have publicly questioned the Harper government’s move.
Writing in February after Harper made the bold claim that Iran would have “no hesitation” about using nuclear weapons, Canada’s last full ambassador to Iran, John Mundy, who was expelled in 2007, expressed his concern about the direction Canada’s Iran policy was taking. “This is the first time in decades that a Canadian prime minister, Liberal or Conservative, appears to be advocating approaches that reduce diplomatic opportunities for peace during an international crisis.” After the news broke on Friday, Mundy described the move as “a grave step” and warned that it cannot “easily be reversed.”
Former Canadian ambassador to Iran, Kenneth Taylor, who famously played a role in the “Canadian Caper”, which saw Canadian officials help the CIA smuggle six American diplomats that had escaped the US embassy in 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis, is also disturbed by the government’s decision. “I really can’t see the rationale of this move,” Taylor told Canada’s CTV News on Friday. “It’s a very bold stroke to sever diplomatic relations and close the embassy within five days.” And if Iran posed a threat to Canada, Taylor argued, it was actually more important to have officials on the ground who can “size up the situation and report from the spot” than the opposite.
This is exactly the position of Canada’s former ambassador to Spain, Daniel Moglat, who wrote in the Globe and Mail: “Canadian embassies, like the one just closed in Iran, exist to serve a number of purposes. One purpose is to speak for Canada, and to listen. When you close an embassy, you are closing your ears, shutting your eyes and covering your mouth.”
More recently, Mundy followed up his February Op-Ed with a new piece, published on Monday in the Globe and Mail, which argues: “Canada’s action reduces our presence on the ground in Iran to zero. We will no longer have the ability to communicate directly with Iran’s government in Iran. We will no longer have Canadian diplomats following political developments within the country and using their local contacts and knowledge to assess how Iranian policy towards the outside world might evolve. A new presidential election to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled for 2013 and we won’t be there to talk to the various actors and pass back to other interested governments, particularly the United States, our assessment of the candidates. Lastly and very significantly, our diplomats will no longer be able to protect the rights of Canadian citizens in Iran.”
Taken together, it is hard not to make the following conclusions: the Canadian government’s decision to sever ties with Iran is based entirely on ideology, does not advance Canada’s national interests in any form, is completely reckless, and endangers the lives of its citizens, the very people it must protect at all costs. And for what? Beyond improving Canada’s image with Israel’s hardline leadership, which is equally reckless in its pursuit of war with Iran, not a single net benefit is to be gained by this fiasco. As I concluded in my letter, “In this time of growing uncertainty, we need people on the ground, lest we follow the same path the Americans took in 2003. This decision is perhaps one of the most ill-conceived ideas in modern history. At least when the Americans and British cut ties, they had good reason.”
- Bryan R. Gibson is a PhD candidate in International History at the London School of Economics and author of “Covert Relationship: American Foreign Policy, Intelligence and the Iran Iraq War”. He specializes in US foreign policy toward the Middle East, with particular emphasis on the Iran, Iraq, and the Kurds.
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