Waking Up To The Iranian Threat

What's a Canadian's life worth? Eighteen thousand dollars says the government of Iran. That is the compensation that an Iranian court proposed to pay the family of murdered photographer Zahra Kazemi -- after that same court refused to hold any individual responsible for Kazemi's death.

What can or should the government of Canada do now?

It could start by opening its eyes. For years, Ottawa has regarded Iran as just another authoritarian country with an unfortunate human-rights record -- deplorable to be sure, but not ultimately a problem of special concern to Canada. Indeed, private citizen Jean Chretien, now a consultant to a Calgary oil company, unconcernedly does business there.

That indifference must end.

Iran is not only a terrible human-rights abuser, although it is that and worse. Iran is also one of the world's leading aggressor states. It is the world's foremost surviving state sponsor of international terror, terror that has reached into Europe and the Americas. Gunmen in Iranian pay have committed mass murder in Berlin; in 1994, Iranian agents blew up the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 86 people -- until 9/11, the deadliest act of international terror in the history of the Western hemisphere.

Now this gruesome regime is nearing completion of a nuclear weapon.

Once Iran acquires such a weapon, it will be able to practice terrorism with impunity. Nuclear mullahs will gain the power to defy not only Canada, but the entire international community.

Of course, Iran has promised to use its nuclear program only for peaceful purposes. But just as the Iranian government has told lie after lie in the Kazemi case, so it has repeatedly been caught lying to the International Atomic Energy Authority.

So far, Iran has suffered no consequences for its flagrant violations of its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The European members of the IAEA have urged a go-slow approach, hoping to coax Iran into behaving better next time. And Canada? Canada's voice has gone unheard.

Nor has Canada spoken up in defence of the brave young Iranian students who have challenged the regime's bogus elections and brutal human rights practices. In 2002 and 2003, dissidents took to the streets to demonstrate against the mullah-dictators. They waved American flags and chanted, "Death to the Taliban in Kabul and Teheran." (The slogan rhymes in Farsi too.) These demonstrations were brutally suppressed: In at least one case, the regime shot at protesters with attack helicopters. Kazemi was arrested and killed for the offence of taking pictures at one of these rallies.

The people who conduct Canada's foreign policy do not seem to connect the dots between the death of Zahra Kazemi and the larger Iranian threat to world peace. They seem to think of the protection of Canadian passport-holders as one kind of problem, terrorism as a second kind, nuclear non-proliferation as something different still and the arrest and murder of student protesters as yet another unrelated problem. They may understand that Iran is a vicious regime. But they have a hard time comprehending that this viciousness has anything to do with them. It is as if, like some ancient South Seas bird, the Ottawa mind has lived in such security for so long that it simply cannot absorb the idea that anyone out there might want to hurt it.

Because they cannot absorb the idea of real danger, Canadian officials seem completely baffled about how to respond to danger. Al-Jazeera's application to the CRTC is a small but telling example. The CRTC seems to have analyzed the application in this way:

"Al-Jazeera is a popular international news service that unfortunately sometimes incites its listeners to go kill Jews. We favour international news, but we deplore killing Jews. Let's see if we can't find some compromise that satisfies all parties."

But the whole point of al-Jazeera is that it is precisely not a news service. It is a tool of mobilization and propaganda used by the terrorist enemy to rally support in the Arabic-speaking world. And since the Arabic-speaking world now extends into many Canadian cities and suburbs, Canada as a country has to worry about the effect of this mobilization and propaganda on Canada's own security.

Canada now hosts a large Arabic-speaking population. Most of this population wants exactly what all Canadians want: freedom for themselves, opportunity for their children. But a minority of this population has proven itself vulnerable to recruitment and manipulation by al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. And al-Jazeera's purpose in coming into Canada is to help with that recruitment and manipulation.

The debate over al-Jazeera's free speech rights versus the dangers of hate speech can occur only because it ignores the rather large fact that there is a war going on -- and that Canada, like all Western countries, is an involuntary combatant in this war.

Canada's ability to achieve justice for the Kazemi family will depend on whether Canadian leaders wake up to these hard facts. And so too does Canada's ability to achieve security for the Canadian people.