Every US President since the 1980s has continued to break international law by threatening the use of force on Iran. Today, a US occupied Iraq lies to Iran’s west, a US, Canada et. all Occupied Afghanistan lies to its East and the world’s superpower and ally (Canada) has fleets sitting to the South in the Arabian Peninsula. All of this with the undertones of the threat of the use of force contrary to the foundational treaty of international law – the UN Charter. International law is clear, the Canadian position is unprincipled. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (to which Iran is a member and Israel and the US have registered caveats) permits all non nuclear states to develop nuclear power.
By Rajinder Sahota
This week Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran mainly to support Israel and its hawkish efforts to attack Iran over non-existent nuclear weapons.
By way of brief summary Iran hasn’t invaded (or threatened to invade) a foreign country in centuries (to do so would be contrary to the UN Charter and a war crime pursuant to the Nuremburg trials).
Sticking to the contemporary period, in the shadows of democratic fervour in the post-WW2 period, shortly after the war, the people of Iran voted in their first democratically elected leader in history (Mossedegh) and thereby overthew the Shah of Iran.
Her Majesty’s government (including Britain’s Winston Churchill) responded to Mossedegh’s offer of a more equitable sharing of Iran’s oil reserves (heretofor exported entirely for British Commonwealth purposes with no compensation) with outright refusal and jaws agape at the suggestion that British Oil (through some accident of nature found beneath the soils of Iran) ought to be “shared” with the Iranians.
With British coup attempts discovered and thwarted, the Iranians expelled British diplomats from Iran. It took several years, but a change in administration in the US resulted in the CIA’s first coup in 1953 where Mossedegh was ousted and the Shah’s dictatorship reinstituted under the tutelage of the US as opposed to the British.
This continued for nearly three decades until the people of Iran rose up at the injustice of their poverty despite the vast oil reserves and the dictatorial rule over them. In 1979 the Shah was overthrown and the Ayatollahs were well positioned to fill the power vacuum.
The US responded by sponsoring Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to launch a full scale war against Iran, where millions died. Once again contrary to international law.
Every US President since has continued to break international law by threatening the use of force on Iran.
Today, a US occupied Iraq lies to Iran’s west, a US, Canada et. all Occupied Afghanistan lies to its East and the world’s superpower and ally (Canada) has fleets sitting to the South in the Arabian Peninsula. All of this with the undertones of the threat of the use of force contrary to the foundational treaty of international law – the UN Charter.
International law is clear, the Canadian position is unprincipled. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (to which Iran is a member and Israel and the US have registered caveats) permits all non nuclear states to develop nuclear power. There is a positive obligation on nuclear weapons states to reduce their arsenal with a goal of eliminating them. The only nuclear powers in the region refuse these legal obligations – US sponsored Pakistan, US sponsored Israel, and of course the US Fleet in the region.
Iran has proposed a nuclear weapons free middle east, met with utter disdain by both the US and Israel. And of course ignored (much as the rest of the brief context above) by the mainstream media.
Rajinder S. Sahota is a practicing lawyer with an academic background in public international law and can be reached at [email protected].
