Tag: iran

François-Philippe Champagne is the new Minister of Foreign Affairs

According to a well-placed leak to CBC News, Canadians have learned that François-Philippe Champagne will be Canada’s 14th Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Chrystia Freeland in the role at Global Affairs Canada.

Champagne was most recently the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities but held the role of Trade Minister just last year in 2018. The promotion to Foreign Affairs Minister is a logical career-track progression for the Minister.

François-Philippe Champagne meets Speaker Inara Murniece of the Latvian Parliament

Canada’s foreign affairs challenges

Champagne will be Canada’s principle international-facing Minister on a number of difficult files.

China’s Canadian hostages and Hong Kong

Perhaps most pressing of issues is the detention of two Canadians by the Chinese government. This came as retaliation for Canada’s intent to fulfill an American extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei.

The Chinese government has held Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor for over 340 days and the two have endured regular interrogation and stress-induction methods at the hands of their PRC captors.

Hong Kong remains a hotspot and a growing concern for Canada. Over half a million Canadians trace their roots back to Hong Kong and about 200,000 were born in the former British colony. The rule of law is being eroded every day for its residents as China starts exerting its influence and control.

François-Philippe Champagne must speak confidently for Canadians without encumbrance on Hong Kong and for the rights of Hong Kongers and the freedoms that they enjoy.

Canada-US relations is an ongoing dance

Champagne is now in charge of managing the Canada-US bilateral relationship. Canada has been without an ambassador in Washington DC since the resignation of David MacNaughton.

Canadians expect an embassy appointment soon as the renegotiated NAFTA (USMCA) agreement still languishes and remains unratified by Congress. Unfortunately, Congress is now gripped by inquiries into impeachment of President Trump.

The Americans will also be looking to Canada and its new Foreign Minister to back up a principled stance in two hotspots in the Americas.

South America is bucking socialist strongmen

Venezuelans have faced hyper-inflation, starvation, and a political crisis sparked by Hugo Chavez and continued by the Maduro regime. Over 10% of Venezuelans have fled the country and more than 90% live in poverty.

Closeby in Bolivia, the resignation of Evo Morales — after being ousted by the military due to accusations of fraud and corruption — poses new challenges for Canada.

The Trudeau government has already declared that it will work with the new government of Jeanine Añez, while refusing to join the United States, Brazil, and Colombia in recognizing Añez as the new President. If Canada is to speak with principled leadership in the region, it cannot continue with this wishy-washy stance.

Canada should do as it did in Venezuela when it recognized the opposition leader as the rightful leader of the country. Again, this comes after reports of corruption, constitutional manipulation, and fraud in both countries by long-standing regimes which have impoverished its people.

Iran faces internal turmoil, Canada should back up the people against the regime

Iran is facing an uprising of its people and has been witness to widespread protests for the past few days. Terry Glavin reports major disturbances in more than 100 towns with 12 people dead and 1000 protesters arrested so far. Iran, as Iran does, has shut down internet access in an attempt to stem the protests.

All of this unrest is in reaction to a spike in fuel prices mandated by the government. Yet, democratic activists in Iran have been vocally calling for regime change for quite some time.

Since the end of the Harper government, Canada has been playing toward the European end of the engagement spectrum with Iran, eschewing the American position of sanctions and isolation in response to Iran’s aggressive plan to enrich uranium for the use in nuclear weapons.

The Canadian-European position is untenable versus a regime that breaks its word on its plans for uranium enrichment. The Iranian government claims peaceful use for energy production. However, the regime continues to threaten Isreal with annihilation and continues to make marked steps away from the 2015 Iran deal.

Champagne will have a chance to reassess Canada’s approach to Iran and will hopefully come to determine that sanctions and isolation are appropriate and reform-inducing responses to a rogue regime that flouts international law.

Trade

On the trade-front, Trudeau has been wise to continue Prime Minister Harper’s agenda of negotiating free trade agreements with friendly nations. Canada is currently negotiating significant free trade agreements with India, Japan, and the Mercosur nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Trudeau will need to repair relations with India to re-prioritize Canadian negotiations with the world’s largest democracy (and growing market), while its diplomatic positions on change in South America could direct progress among the significant markets of that continent.

And in non-census-related news…

A 20-year old letter allegedly written by Iranian “Green revolution” leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi to Iran’s then-president President Ali Khamenei is causing a lot of chatter within Tehran-watching circles this week. The letter was published on the website of the now-exiled past President of the Islamic Republic Abolhassan Banisadr and appears to expose a long-denied international assertion against the Iranian regime. The letter references the type of activity that suggests that Iran has participated in foreign terrorist attacks and has been fighting an aysymmetric proxy war against its enemies for quite some time now. Not that this is such a stunning revelation to anyone, but it is interesting nonetheless that internal government documents have come to light from within that acknowledges this.

Here is the letter, and I’ve reprinted a Google-translated excerpt below:

“After the plane is hijacked, we become aware of it. When the machine gun in a street opens in Lebanon and the sound turned it everywhere, we will know the case. After the discovery of explosives from our pilgrims in Jeddah, I’m aware of it. Unfortunately, and despite all the loss that the country has realized this move, yet like every time the operation can be called anytime the state occurs”

Our troops in Afghanistan are fighting an asymmetric battle against non-state actors in the south of that country. We’ve known for some time that factions within the Pakistan military have been sympathetic and supportive of Taliban fighters and we’ve known the same about Iran’s support as well. If the letter is valid, it helps the Iranian regime lose face over a lie it has laughably maintained among the international community. Though, such a “revelation” will come as a shock to no one. Iran for example provides billions of dollars in annual support to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Facing mounting opposition from opposition forces, Ahmadinejad has taken a hard-line stance to bolster his support among hardliners within his base. This, of course, is underscored by the development of a nuclear program to assert Iran’s independence, defense and dominance over the region. However, a nuclear program, while couched in anti-Semitic and bellicose terms, is at minimum state-to-state posturing.

The release of the letter that internally confirms that the regime has long participated in state-sanctioned proxied asymmetric attacks against not only foreign soldiers but against civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon among other countries, may simply be yet another element for fodder for an opposition posturing against a hard-line regime losing favour at home. This further suggests to Iranians that their leadership has been occupied with tangential foreign issues while domestic strife rises and quality of life diminishes.

To that point, this is also about two rival political factions blaming each other for failures in Iran’s history as an Islamic republic. Washington’s Daily Beast picks up on this thread,

“This letter has historical significance now,” Banisadr told The Daily Beast in a telephone interview. “At the time of its initial publication it was significant, too, because it clearly stated that the Iranian regime was involved in terrorist activities abroad; that these actions were not sporadic, but that it was the Iranian government that was engaged in terrorist activities.”

Neither Khamenei nor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has commented on the letter. But people in Iran speculate that the letter re-emerged at this moment because Mousavi was threatening to reveal secrets in connection with the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, having been accused by current Iranian authorities of losing the war. And some hope that Mousavi’s secrecy standoff with the government might cast light on another dark moment in Iran’s history–the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988, which reportedly cost the lives of thousands of people. Within Iran, the executions are a taboo subject. But last month, Mousavi alluded to them, suggesting that his cabinet was kept in the dark.

The Mousavi letter also seeks to establish the credentials of the opposition leader as someone who was in government and who was an insider to the regime’s history. This contrasts with Ahmadinejad, the former mayor of Tehran who had little to no experience.