Cutting diplomatic ties with Iran is knee-jerk and hypocritical: Canadian law professor

TEHRAN,Sept.15(MNA) – The Canadian government’s decision to close its embassy in Tehran and suspend diplomatic relations with Iran was a knee-jerk and hypocritical decision, according to an article written by a Canadian law professor that was published on thespec.com on Tuesday. Following are excerpts of the article written by Gus Van Harten, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto who also taught international law at the London School of Economics: Last week’s decision by (Canadian Prime Minister) Harper government to break diplomatic ties with Iran was a knee-jerk, hypocritical decision that looks like a sop to “Israel-first, Canada-later” voters in swing ridings. (Canadian Foreign Minister) Baird says that Iran violated the Vienna convention on consular relations. So too has the U.S., blatantly. In 1999, Arizona put to death a German citizen named Walter LaGrand. It did so shortly after the International Court of Justice asked the U.S. to suspend the execution so the court could consider an international complaint by Germany. The U.S. federal government did little to discourage the execution. Later, the international court found that the U.S. had violated the Vienna Convention by failing to give LaGrand, along with others on death row, proper access to consular advice. Baird says further that Iran gives military assistance to Syria’s Assad regime. Not long ago, U.S. and Canadian agencies supplied Syrian Military Intelligence with questions, under torture, for prisoners labeled “terrorist.” Recall also that Saudi Arabia’s government has armed the menacing elements of Syria’s opposition, shortly after it invaded Bahrain to suppress that country’s Arab Spring. Baird says that Iran supports a terrorist organization, Hezbollah. This is another label. Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s to resist an Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Just six countries, led by Israel and the U.S., have classified Hezbollah as terrorist. Whatever Hezbollah’s abuses, they fall well short of, for example, the U.S.-backed death squads that terrorized Central America in the 1980s and 1990s. The death squads killed tens of thousands of civilians. And, the death squads recently returned to Central America after the military coup in Honduras in 2009. Nearly every country in the hemisphere condemned the military junta. The Harper government supported it from early days. In 2011, it even inked a trade deal with the Generals. The point is that Baird’s charges against Iran are vague, simplistic, and easily manipulated.