Horak: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different, Regg Cohn, Ebadi and Akhavan

2026/01/14 Leave a comment

Some of the better analyses of the situation in Iran, starting with former Canadian diplomat Dennis Horak:

…Notwithstanding the challenges the regime faces, it would be foolish to underestimate the repressive abilities of the Iranian security apparatus to protect the Islamic Republic. The forces stacked up against the protesters are formidable; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular, is brutal and experienced, and its leadership has strong vested interests in maintaining the status quo, including vast economic holdings. They, like the protesters, have something to fight for, and they have the weapons. The regime will not be going quietly. 

The regime is also bolstered by the fact that the exiled opposition movement continues to be fractious, and thus offers little hope as a viable alternative. While the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, has gained more visibility this time around, he carries a difficult legacy that will make it hard to rally around him, notwithstanding the effectiveness of his communications team. 

It is difficult to predict how this will all turn out. Most revolutions fail, until they don’t. But it is likely that some measure of change is coming this time, even if the current revolt is put down. It is hard to see how the status quo in Iran is sustainable. It will take more than vague promises of economic reform of the sort uttered by President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday to placate current or future protesters. Fundamental reform will be required, beginning with policy shifts on the nuclear front and an end to regional meddling to allow for the lifting of crippling sanctions and draw the country back from the radical, revolutionary fringe. 

To achieve this, there will need to be profound changes in how the regime functions, if there is not to be regime change. The question is: can Iran have the former without the latter? 

Dennis Horak was Canada’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen from 2015 to 2018 and chargé d’affaires in Iran from 2009 to 2012.

Source: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different

Regg Cohn | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

…And so revolution is in the air again, just as it was nearly five decades ago in the twilight of the shah’s despotic rule. Iran’s tortured history teaches cruel lessons of false hope and false starts.

In 1979, secular leftists and religious rightists joined forces to topple the shah of the day, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The clerics, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hijacked the revolution and declared an Islamic Republic.

They were usurpers, not liberators.

Pahlavi, who went into exile in 1979, was the son of an army officer who had crowned himself shah in 1925. Pahlavi fled the country in 1953 in a dispute with the democratically elected parliament — only to be restored to power in a CIA-backed coup days later.

Now, all these years later, his son — declared crown prince at age seven — is claiming the mantle of leadership from exile.

As Iranians try one more time to break free of the Islamic Revolution, nearly half a century after it supposedly liberated them, the last thing they need is to be tethered to a pretender to the throne. The people of Iran will chart their own path, cheered on by supporters in the diaspora but without taking orders from them — lest another revolution face another hijacking.

Iranians are fighting for liberation, not usurpation.

Source: Opinion | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent

…The continuing heroism of the Iranian people is a reminder of the tremendous potential for the future of a rich civilization that produced the first human-rights declaration 2,500 years ago in the cuneiform text of clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, which is now housed in the British Museum. The scenes unfolding in Iran today demonstrate that 50 years of totalitarianism has not extinguished this powerful legacy, expressed in the ancient belief that in the end, light will triumph over darkness. Now, the world community must support this awakening and stand in solidarity with those who remind us of the astonishing resilience of the human spirit.

Shirin Ebadi is the founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Payam Akhavan is the Human Rights Chair at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, a founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, and a former UN prosecutor at The Hague.

Source: As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent

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Now more than ever, Canada needs to resume diplomatic ties with Iran

2020/01/11 Leave a comment

Pertinent advice by our former head of mission to Iran and Saudi Arabia (his cross posting was from Iran to Saudi Arabia, mine at a much more junior level was the reverse, from Saudi Arabia to Iran in the mid-to-late 1980s).

I always felt that one of the most significant aspect of having diplomatic relations and embassies was the ability to provide consular services, both for Iranians in Canadians and Canadians in Iran.

The shooting down of the Ukraine International provides a dramatic illustration of this need:

The plane crash in Iran on Wednesday that killed 176 people, including at least 63 Canadians, was an unimaginable human tragedy. Families and futures were lost in the blink of an eye. The pain will last generations.

For diplomats, dealing with the deaths of Canadians abroad is one of the most difficult challenges. It is also one of the most important. Families are going through the worst time of their lives. It is the role of diplomats to step in and try to facilitate the process of returning their loved ones to Canada, while dealing with the often mind-numbing and incomprehensible bureaucratic realities that inevitably come with it.

Dealing with these events is even more challenging when Canada has no diplomatic presence on the ground or even diplomatic relations with the country where the tragedy occurred. That is the case with Iran.

Canada’s relations with Iran had been fraught from the earliest days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, given Canada’s role in facilitating the escape of six U.S. diplomats during the hostage crisis. It was an episode that hung over the bilateral relationship for decades – with more than one Iranian official berating me during my time in Iran for helping those “American spies.”

There were a range of additional policy issues and differences that had fractured the relationship in the intervening years. The final break came with the passage of the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (JVTA) in March, 2012, and the listing of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism in September, 2012. The legislation allowed for the seizure and sale of Iranian government properties in Canada.

The JVTA made the security situation for the Canadian embassy in Iran untenable; a point that was driven home only months before when the British embassy was violently attacked by an Iranian mob. We were now about to start seizing Iranian properties in Canada. The embassy was closed the day the legislation naming Iran came into effect.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was a necessary one. We knew that Canada’s ability to provide consular services would suffer. Italy stepped up as our protecting power in-country and management of consular services was transferred to the Canadian embassy in Ankara. In normal circumstances, it was a manageable, if inadequate and inconvenient, arrangement.

The system, however, was not designed to handle a crisis situation like the one that occurred on Wednesday. Those kinds of situations cannot be managed remotely.

The Islamic Republic is never an easy partner to deal with, even, sadly, in tragic situations. Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s call to his Iranian counterpart, Javid Zarif, was a good start. It’s to be hoped it will pave the way for Iranian co-operation in helping Canada try and ease the suffering of families by letting our officials go to Iran to do what they need to do. That’s the least that can be expected and they deserve the full co-operation of Iranian authorities on the ground. But given the state of our relations (or, more to the point, lack thereof) that cannot be assumed. I do hope, though, that Iran does not use its refusal to recognize dual nationality to argue that Canada has no direct interest in this incident. Sadly, that cannot be ruled out.

There are reports that the Iranian Civil Aviation Authorities have invited Canada’s Transportation Safety Board to join the international team being assembled to investigate the crash and according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, consular officials are heading to Iran. In light of Canadian intelligence information that the plane seems to have been shot down by the Iranian military, we can’t be certain Iran will allow Canadian access. The fact that Iran was on the other end of similar event in 1988, when an Iranian commercial aircraft was brought down over the Persian Gulf by an American naval vessel, should enhance willingness to co-operate, but how open they actually will be remains to be seen.

It would be a welcome outcome if this incident provided new impetus to the effort to resume diplomatic ties and a return to Tehran in due course, taking into account the broader geopolitical context. There is no substitute for being on the ground. Canada has been blind to what has been happening in Iran – especially important these past several days – and we have our hands tied in dealing with this tragedy.

But that will require dealing with the JVTA and that will be tough politically. The federal government will be accused of going soft on Iran and denying that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. Removing the JVTA says nothing of the sort. The JVTA was a mistake that is hurting Canadian interests and, more importantly, undercutting the government’s duty to serve Canadians. It should go.

Source: Now more than ever, Canada needs to resume diplomatic ties with Iran: Dennis Horak

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