Why was the Iran Embassy Closed?
When Peter MacKay’s outspoken wife Nazanin Afshin-jam announced in July that Canada should shut down the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, on the nebulous charge that it was using cultural events to distribute propaganda (something which Canadian embassies have traditionally also done, incidentally), I almost wrote a post telling her to get realistic. Outside of crises demanding some sort of heavy symbolic action, or outright wars for obvious reasons, embassies don’t usually get shut down for an obvious reason: if you close down your embassy, what happens next week, or next month, or next year, when you urgently need to communicate about something?
Fortunately, back in July, I bit my tongue, because apparently the juvenile Harper regime agreed with Afshin-jam. Our embassy in Tehran has been closed; in response, Iran will leave Canada. No particular reason for the move was given, but the Harper regime has been playing it up anyways. In probably the most absurd part of the whole debacle, Stephen Harper has implied that the Iranians care so much about Canadian goodwill, and will be so incensed by his genius surprise move, that they might actually contemplate military action (against who?).
I won’t appeal to supporters of the government on the grounds that this move has suddenly left a number of Canadians in prison in that authoritarian regime — the sort of political imprisonment that our government says has outraged them the most — without the benefit of consular support. If you cared about consular access, you wouldn’t be a supporter of this government.
I will, however, say the following. If the Harper regime has a reason for this move other than to appeal the rabid Islamophobes among their base, they have a duty to explain their action to the Canadian public immediately. Idiotic and provocative statements about “Iran’s capacity for increasingly bad behaviour” don’t cut it. The fact that Iran is governed by religious extremists is hardly news. The fact that they are widely reported to have a nuclear weapons research program, and that their leaders routinely denounce Israel, is also hardly news. So, why the sudden need to shut down their embassy?
There is one obvious good reason to shut down an embassy, given that one of your allies has been publicly discussing the possibility of a military strike against Iran and another of your allies is in the middle of a painfully contentious election cycle that would prevent them from prohibiting the strike the way they usually do. Let’s hope that’s not the reason. Let’s hope our government is smarter than that.
Our regime also should be honest about the fact that the embassy closure will have real consequences for diplomatic relations. Saying we’ll just conduct those relations through allied embassies in Tehran doesn’t cut it. If we could do that on a routine basis, we wouldn’t have needed our embassy there to begin with. It’s also worth pointing out that none of our allies actually have to volunteer to help us in that way, and they’re going to be a little reluctant to bend over backwards for us in Tehran just to help us out of the fix we caused through our immature PR stunt. The United States has the influence to lean on its allies for help in such situations and expect compliance. Canada doesn’t.
Maybe there really wasn’t any carefully thought-out reason for the closing of the embassy. It wouldn’t surprise me. When it comes to foreign affairs, this is a government that sends out press releases denouncing the alphabet
Beyond that, what happens if we actually do need to talk to the Iranian regime in the future? I guess the Harper regime is gambling that we won’t have to. After all, they don’t want to buy our oil, and they don’t want to invest in our oilpatch. Who needs ‘em?
Update: Former ambassador to Iran John Mundy makes many of the same points in the Globe & Mail. He also points out that it will be difficult to get our embassy reopened, so essentially we’ve said with this move that there would be nothing worth saying to the Iranian government on any subject for the foreseeable future.
Tweet
Troy
“After all, they don’t want to buy our oil, and they don’t want to invest in our oilpatch. Who needs ‘em?”
Harper, the economist, that’s whom!
After all, any military strike on Iran will have no effect on oil prices, whatsoever, nosiree Bob!
Obviously, this is something Harper, the economist, has concluded, and thought much about. We have absolutely no reason to worry, cause after all, didn’t Harper finally admit, after months of pain, back in 2009, that there was a recession, and perhaps our Harper government could do something about it?
Fightfordemocracy
Maybe Harper anticipates the upcoming American election and believes Obama will lose. Maybe he thinks the new administration will be eager for war against Iran and Canada will join in. What is the purpose of closing the embassy? The lack of communication will foment misunderstandings and trouble by its very nature. Is Harper trying to prepare the Canadian public to accept war with Iran?
Anon
Actually, I think it is because Harper is preparing for an inevitable Obama win (or at least hoping to prevent it).
Since Obama had been trying to rein in Israel a bit (at least compared to Romney who had apparently professed his undying love for all things Israel), Harper probably felt the need to stand strongly with his new best friends and at the same time throw some red meat to his base, some of whom had been itching to attack Iran. And then, of course, it might also have been in response to a request from Israel, seeing how quickly Netanyahu had praised Harper’s action while contradicitng the reason given by Harper.
Now the interesting question is what Israel will do since all the polls post the DNC are showing a statistically significant Obama surge.
Will Israel use the window before the U.S. Presidential election in November to attack Iran, gambling that it would help the Republicans and put Obama in a very tough spot or perhaps even cause him to lose the election?
Here is another quesion: what do you think Conada (lol) will do if Israel attacks?
Sixth Estate
If there was going to be an Israeli raid on Iran, logically it would probably occur in the pre-election window. That way the United States would have to support it. It would force both Obama’s and Romney’s hands politically. The flip side is that whoever wins might not appreciate having been manipulated in that manner.
If Israel attacked Iran, then Stephen Harper would announce that obviously Canada was deeply concerned about world peace and was watching the situation very closely, but that the Iranian government abused its own people and was building nuclear weapons to threaten its neighbours, and so it’s not surprising that some of those neighbours felt compelled to act.
kootcoot
This is reminiscent of the juvenile dealings over the ME airline that resulted in Conada losing its landing rights in some ME shithole of the rich and some Canadian brass having their plane diverted. I can’t remember the details, or even which airline or country was involved, but it did lose for Conada a transit point in the ME for troops and supplies to Afghanistan.
The Harper government conducts foreign policy like a third grader on the schoolyard.
Media Culpa
re the Globe’s editorial on the issue today:
http://mediaculpapost.blogspot.ca/2012/09/eminence-grise-and-grey-lady.html
Sixth Estate
kootcoot — It was Dubai, I believe. The United Arab Emirates.
Media Culpa — Thanks for bringing that up. Sheesh. And your thoughts in the closing paragraph mirror my own: if the Globe is so unhappy with Harper’s politics, why do they keep endorsing him?
Incidentally, I’m working on a list of such episodes where the Globe criticizes the government, in the event my blog is still active by the time the next election comes around. It will be published as my response when the Globe endorses (again) the Harper regime.
Purple Library Guy
Well, when it comes to the prisoners I don’t suppose it matters much. It’s not like this government believes in doing anything for Canadian citizens in trouble in other countries, so the embassy probably wouldn’t have been helping them anyway.
Come to think of it, this government doesn’t believe in doing anything for Canadian citizens even when they’re in Canada . . .
As to why . . . all I can come up with is more or less what people have said: On one hand, maybe Netanyahu wants him to because he hopes it will ratchet up the tension and help Netanyahu get away with his war. On the other, maybe he’s trying to cause Obama problems in hopes of getting Romney elected, because he’s never gotten over the shock of seeing the Americans elect someone vaguely sane.
I’ve always gotten the feeling Harper really can’t hack Obama. I mean sure, Obama does horrible fascist militarist greed-and-fraud-rewarding things, but right wingers aren’t comfortable with people who only do that stuff because they’re getting paid–you just never know when they might hesitate, the way Obama is hesitating over fucking the world economy so Netanyahu can get his jollies. Harper will be a lot happier with someone in the White House who does all the evil because he wants to; even Romney isn’t ideal, not really mean enough, but at least he’s a Republican and a plutocrat.
jrkrideau
I was amused to read that Benjamin Netanyahu was just sworn in as Canada’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1253310–burman-what-has-prompted-canada-s-move-against-iran
And that little contretemps with Dubai (well the Emirates) got our supply (and reinforcement?) base kicked out of the country which only cost us a measly $300 million or so to relocate to some place like Cyprus (much closer to Afghanistan of course) and now Canadian citizens need visas to visit one of the main commercial and recreational centres of the middle east.
I believe it was the old minister of foreign affairs (pre Netanyahu) and the Chief of Defence Staff who were refused landing rights.
The Harper Government continues its unbroken sting of diplomatic gaffes in fine style.
Realist
So what do you think now? Our PM responds appropriately to real threats, unlike our neighbour’s president.
Sixth Estate
I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. The American embassy in Iran has been closed for quite a good long while now.