The Ongoing Tragedy

Iran has admitted that the Ukrainian 737 airliner was unintentionally shot down. Tony Burman writes that the admission is just another in a series of violent acts and missed opportunities:

To an astonishing extent, the story of the past four decades of Iranian-U.S. relations is one of selective memory and missed opportunity — by each side.

An example of selective memory occurred this week in a sharp exchange between the country’s two presidents, Donald Trump and Hassan Rouhani.

Trump warned Iran that the U.S. had identified 52 Iranian sites, some “important to Iran and Iranian culture” and they would be “hit very fast and hard” if Tehran carried out revenge attacks on them.

Iran’s president replied that “290” is actually the proper number to stress, referring to the Iranian passenger plane shot down accidentally by the U.S. military in 1988, killing all 290 civilians on board.

The American hostage drama of 1979 is probably the only historic Iranian event that most Americans remember, but it is rarely mentioned now in Iran. In contrast, the U.S. downing in 1988 of an Iranian passenger jet — unknown to most Americans — is etched deeply in Iranian history.

People forget that there have been several times when the Americans and Iranians could have buried the hatchet:

In 2003, as respected Iranian-American scholar Trita Parsi once reported, Iranian officials secretly offered the Bush Administration a “grand bargain” that would have limited Iran’s aggressive actions in the region and lead to the recognition of Israel — as long as the U.S. abandoned any notion of “regime change.” The offer was rejected as not serious.

And then, of course, after years of negotiation, there was the historic nuclear deal of 2016 between Iran and the world’s leading powers. It provided stability for more than a decade and was being adhered to by Iran — until Donald Trump blew it up.

The two nations are like the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Both families come to church on Sundays -- rifles in hand -- and sit on opposite sides of the aisle. But, as they leave, they tell the preacher they were impressed by the sermon -- on brotherly love. Each side has forgotten the reason why the feud between the two families started. Nevertheless, they're certain they must uphold the family honour.

And innocent people continue to die in the ongoing tragedy.

Our Business

If you think that what is brewing between Iran and the United States is none our business, Hugh Segal urges you to think again:

But the tensions between Iran and the U.S. are most assuredly our problem. As a founding partner of the NATO treaty, which provides for mutual defence between the 28 member nations, an Iranian attack upon American forces, embassies, homeland or personnel would trigger an Article 5 Treaty obligation for Canada to engage, just as was the case after the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even though no state actor claimed responsibility.

Canada’s foreign minister was quite correct in urging restraint upon all parties last week – a note that was echoed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a Monday meeting of NATO ambassadors. But restraint is usually the product of a clear understanding by all involved of the consequences of unrestrained aggression. While that meeting was right to consider the dynamics relative to the alliance mission in Iraq that is now under Canadian command – a mission that has been suspended – a broader ministerial meeting to underline the reality of Article 5 would be broadly constructive. After all, it would be a serious path to restraint to make it perfectly clear that NATO would view a clear attack on the United States, its people, forces or homeland – be it kinetic, cyber or via terrorist proxy – as an act of aggression against all NATO members.

We need to take a proactive stance in this crisis:

Canada should, in fact, be calling for immediate NATO ministerial meetings so that this common resolve can emerge. Doing so would further motivate Russia – which engaged in joint naval exercises with China and Iran in the Gulf of Oman in late December and is not without substantive interests and influence in Tehran – to urge restraint on their Iranian client-state colleagues. A Canadian call for an urgent Security Council meeting would also be of value. 

If, as our Prime Minister has stated, “Canada is back,” then this crisis requires that we engage in a mature and strategic way. There are key questions that need to be crunched: What resources can we deploy from our regular or Special Forces? How can our intelligence resources be deployed in support of our NATO ally? What special self-defence measures will be required to contain Iranian hostilities?

It's incredibly easy to be dragged or to slide into a war -- particularly if you are Donald Trump's neighbours. As Justin's father famously told Americans, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

Image: American Elephants WordPress.com