Iran

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says it would be a “gift” for Israel to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a statement he made when asked about American opposition to an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

Outside the House of Commons on Tuesday, Poilievre sidestepped a question about whether an Israeli strike against nuclear facilities in Iran could lead to a direct war between the adversaries. U.S. President Joe Biden, who like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged restraint to prevent the conflict from intensifying further, told reporters last week that he does not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Although the war, or in fact wars, triggered against Israel by Hamas are far from over, global punditry is already regimented in a cacophonic chorus to tell the protagonists what to do and what not to do.

In fact, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s decision to try and save face by firing missiles at Israel could expand rather than shrink a battlefield that covers a large chunk of the Middle East down to Yemen.

Iran’s missile strikes on Israel were “correct, logical, and lawful”, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a vast crowd which had gathered to hear him speak in Tehran on Friday.

The country’s supreme leader described the attack as the “minimum punishment” for what he called Israel’s “astonishing crimes” while leading Friday prayers in the capital, something he has not done since 2020.

Khamenei’s speech came three days after Iran fired nearly 200 missiles at Israel, in what it said was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

In a significant move that, since the establishment of Iran’s Islamist regime, Iranian leaders have actively extended their influence to support a political party and candidate in a U.S. presidential race. This notable intervention is directed towards aiding the Democratic ticket headed by Vice President Kamala Harris. It is a move that signals that Iran’s regime hopes to secure an even deeper geopolitical alignment after the upcoming U.S. elections.

The FBI recently confirmed that information stolen by the Iranian regime agents, through their hacking of Donald Trump’s campaign, was disseminated to individuals connected to the Democratic campaign.

The good news from Iran is that there isn’t going to be any change in the way the Islamic Republic has always behaved. This is to say, the “Supreme Guide” has decided to swallow his latest humiliation caused by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran and refrain from seeking “hard revenge” as his more radical followers hoped. On Tuesday, a group of Revolutionary Guards raided the German Goethe Institute in Tehran and shut and sealed it in retaliation to the German government’s closing of an Iranian propaganda center in Hamburg last month.

The bad news is also the same: there isn’t going to be any change in the way the Islamic Republic has always behaved. Newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian isn’t going to be the Iranian Gorbachev, as the pro-US faction in the ruling clique had hoped.