Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 5th, 2009

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here. I really appreciate your testimony.

I'd like to start my questions with Mr. Stanton. You've talked about the eight stages and how they are meant as a guide for policy-makers. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on the steps that Iran has taken as it steps closer to step seven: extermination. In particular, I'm looking at the stages of organization, polarization, and preparation.

The reason I want more detail is that we've heard previous witnesses indicate, certainly, that religious minorities have been persecuted, specifically Azerbaijanis, Bahá'ís, and Kurds, but we've also heard testimony that other quasi-religious minorities like Christians and Jews receive or are the beneficiaries of greater protections under the constitution.

We also know that there is at least an enclave of a Jewish community within Iran, yet I have not heard testimony about their specific persecution. The thought crosses my mind that if Iran were intent on annihilating the Jews in Israel, certainly they would take steps within their own country first, but I have not heard that testimony yet.

Perhaps you can provide some insight into what persecution of the Jews is occurring within Iran. Also very helpful would be any information you can provide about the steps closer to step seven, extermination, which would provide a very strong argument about their place at that stage.

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

This is often raised as a counter-argument to the intent of the Iranian regime. It is true that there is a Jewish community in Iran. There's also a Christian community. However, to characterize them as having equal rights, for instance, with the Shiite community in Iran is inaccurate. The truth is that Jews and Christians both are discriminated against in Iran in jobs, in the legal sphere, and in many other domains of life. It is not true that they have equal rights.

However, there is a difference between their treatment and the treatment of Bahá'ís Azeris, Kurds, and other groups that the Iranian regime has decided to positively persecute. It's true. I think, though, that the overall ideology of the Iranian regime, which includes, for instance, in the polarization stage, actual use of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact and the kind of language that is constantly used by Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders against Jews as Jews, as animals, barbarians, mass murderers, etc.... I think this kind of dehumanizing language is an early stage on the way to genocide. So even if they have been a minority in Iran for some long time...and there aren't that many, by the way, who are in Iran still. Most Iranian Jews have left.

I think the basic ideology of dehumanization is still present. It's already present. And it would not take much to push it over into genocide, even in Iran itself. So although it may not yet be to the extermination stage in Iran, or perhaps not even to the preparation stage against Jews in Iran or Christians in Iran, I think that at least some of the earlier stages are surely there, especially dehumanization and polarization.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Ottolenghi, you've talked about the current candidates running for office, and Mr. Stanton, you talked about Canada seeking to indict Iran at the International Court of Justice. If there were a change in leadership, if there were a new President—and from your comments, it doesn't sound as if any of the current candidates would bring a great deal of difference to the leadership—would that be a defence for Iran, that basically they've had a change in power? The extremist Mr. Ahmadinejad has been replaced, and his comments no longer represent the government. Would they be able to use that as a defence?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

The answer is yes. It's a well-known doctrine in law that if a case is moot and no longer applies, it could be used as a defence if they could show that there was a genuine change.

The charge would be that Iran has violated the genocide convention, however. So if in fact the incitement has not been in some way dealt with or punished in Iran, as it is supposed to be under the genocide convention--in other words, if Iran doesn't prosecute Ahmadinejad and the others--then you might still in fact have a case. But I think you're right that it would weaken the case. However, from what I've heard, especially from our other witness today, who is far more of an expert on Iranian politics than I am, it doesn't sound very likely that even the other candidates are going to bring about a massive change.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Mr. Ottolenghi, do you have any comments on a possible change in leadership and the implications for an action at the International Court of Justice?

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi]

I'm less of an expert on judicial and legal matters, but I want to make a brief point.

I speak from Brussels, which is the capital of the European Union and also the headquarters of NATO. The European Union, through its three foremost members—France, Great Britain, and Germany—has been engaged in talking to Iran's leaders since 2003, soon after the exposure of the clandestine nuclear program to the world. We in Europe have been speaking to Iran for six years now. We have spoken to Iran during the Khatami era. We have spoken to Iran during the Ahmadinejad era. We will continue to speak to Iran after Ahmadinejad is gone, if he loses the elections.

There are people here who believe that the problem is Ahmadinejad, that somehow the leadership before Ahmadinejad was more reasonable and amenable to a compromise, and therefore new leaders will be amenable to compromise again. So yes, in a sense, if the supreme leader thought that gaining time is now something critical for Iran's goals, he would push for a replacement of Ahmadinejad through elections.

Despite the changes, despite the elaborate dance of different people and envoys—Rohani, then Larijani, then Jalili, and who knows who will come next as a nuclear negotiator—the policy remains substantially the same and the goals remain the same. Iran aspires to regional hegemony and to expanding its influence and indeed exporting its ideology, and nuclear weapons are an instrument to achieve this goal.

I want to spend one more minute on this specific issue because Canada, among NATO members, has been generous, courageous, and committed to the war that the free world is fighting in Afghanistan. You have lost men and indeed women, and you have sacrificed the treasury.

Now, there is a sense that a new leadership in Iran may, for example, come forward and cooperate with us in Afghanistan, because there is a sense that somehow reasonable leaders in Iran would see that there are shared goals. The fact is that the ultimate, overall, overarching goal of all figures of power in Iran, despite the differences, is to reduce the presence, the influence, and the impact of western countries--first and foremost, that of the United States--in the region, starting from Afghanistan.

So a change in power will create the impression that something has changed, and the case that people like my colleague over in Ottawa is making in the public sphere...have somehow lost the reason for barking up Iran's tree. The fact is different. Iran's goals are not determined by an elected politician. They are determined by the supreme leader, who, in the Shia doctrine that informs the Iranian revolution, is the shadow of God on earth. The shadow of God on earth, who speaks in the name of God, cannot possibly be influenced and conditioned by the fickle will of the people and cannot delegate the determination of political choices on such crucial matters as the exportation of Islamic ideology across the world to an election.

We should remember that even if Ahmadinejad goes and perhaps the case against Ahmadinejad through the International Criminal Court or other international legal fora becomes weaker, the case against Iran and the goals of the Iranian regime will remain just as menacing and threatening as they are today. The difference is only in the fact that the rhetoric is blunt and direct, whereas before it wasn't. But the goal remains the same.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

We are running short on time, so I'm going to encourage the next two questioners to ask their questions to one witness only. Just to ensure we can fit both questioners in, what I'll do is continue to see the clock as not yet having achieved 2 p.m. until the answer to the second questioner comes in.

Mr. Silva, please.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank both witnesses for their excellent presentations.

Mr. Stanton, thank you. I appreciated hearing about the early signs of genocide. I remember reading Samantha Power's book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, and I remember heeding those things. Because of the shortness of time, I have to ask the question of Mr. Ottolenghi. Maybe we can speak after the meeting today.

There are a few things I want to ask. I'll be very specific. The evidence of Iran seeking nuclear power and the timeline are very important. My second question has to do with that Calgary company, which I think we have to get to the bottom of. Could you help us out with further details about that company and also with the spelling of the name? I don't have the spelling.

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi]

Let me start with the second part, which is simpler. On the spelling, it is K-a-l-a N-a-f-t, and it has a branch in Calgary. As for the details, I will be happy to liaise separately with you and pass them on, including the information the European Union has in its hands about the role this company is playing in illegal procurement.

When it comes to the evidence and the timeline, I just want to say a quick word about the timeline. I do not have access to privileged intelligence of the kind the President of the United States hopefully sees every morning. I suspect that the honourable members of the committee don't either. Most people in the western world don't have access. So we cannot determine the timeline very accurately. Also, this is a very complicated process that is very dynamic, and it is a process that countries concerned about its consequences constantly try to disrupt. So when high-placed officials tell you that Iran is six months or six years away from having nuclear weapons, take those assessments with a grain of salt, because even the most informed people in the business do not have the exact, precise, accurate timeline down to the last month or day.

Having said that, we have enough information from open sources--I'm talking as an ordinary citizen and not as somebody who is privy to classified information--to know that Iran has made tremendous progress moving forward toward the finish line. The evidence available from open sources is something that should concern us tremendously.

I just want to mention a few things that emerge from documents such as the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency. First, Iran has aggressively sought enrichment and the mastery of the nuclear cycle. Before building the kind of nuclear power plants that would benefit from the fuel produced, the usual sequence in the history of nuclear energy for civilian purposes is the opposite: countries develop the nuclear power plants, and then eventually, and not necessarily, learn how to enrich uranium. Oftentimes it is supplied by the supplier groups.

The second point it that Iran has aggressively sought to enrich uranium. The only nuclear power plant Iran has today, which is not functional yet, is the one in Bushehr. The uranium fuel would be supplied by Russia, so it doesn't need to do that. Iran has also developed a facility in Iraq, which was one of the clandestine facilities exposed in 2002, that is a heavy water reactor, very likely designed to produce plutonium for weapons. Iran to this very day denies access to that facility by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

Iran has concealed its nuclear program for 18 years, which in and of itself is an indication that Iran has much to explain. Iran has conducted a number of experiments and activities that can only be explained in the context of a military program, including experiments with high explosives that are typically used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction in a device. It has experimented on specific, very special kinds of triggers that are typical of nuclear weapons. It has sought the plans and technology and has experimented with milling uranium metal and shaping it in the form of hemispheres, which can only be used in nuclear weapons. All of this is documented, let alone the fact that much of the technology Iran achieved originally for its nuclear power comes from the illicit nuclear network run by the Pakistani scientist and father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan. We know a lot of things about the nuclear program in Iran from that source, which further confirms the concern that this program has military dimensions.

Finally, most of the industries, companies, and research centres that are involved in the nuclear program--including the ones that produce centrifuges for the Iranian nuclear program--are either military or directly run by the Revolutionary Guards. Again, it's one further point about how difficult it is to say that Iran is pursuing nuclear power only for civilian purposes, given the heavy involvement of the military sector.

One last example is one of the recent reports by the IAEA, in which it emerged that one of the scientists working for one of these military centres has actually conducted studies about the Trinity test and the effect of the shock wave caused by the plutonium bomb that the Americans exploded in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. When Iran was asked by the IAEA to explain this fact, the answer it gave was that this was a private hobby of the scientist in question. It then denied access for an interview of the scientist.

The evidence available in the public sphere is overwhelming. Only those who do not wish to recognize the harsh reality that a nuclear military program in the hands of Iran constitutes insist on accepting the Iranian version, that this is only for civilian purposes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Mr. Sweet will be our last questioner today.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My questions will be for Mr. Stanton, so that kind of works out in a very balanced way.

I would like to say to Mr. Ottolenghi: congratulations, Dad.

[Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi]

Thank you.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

You've studied genocides in the past and have developed these stages. I guess the first thing I'd like to ask you is whether there has been any event in history where a state has threatened and gone to stage six and has then retreated, where there's no subsequent genocide?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

Yes. There have been a number of them, and in fact several recently. The closest recent examples include Macedonia, where a UN peacekeeping force was sent in at the border to keep the ethnic cleansing and genocide occurring in Kosovo from spilling over the border into Macedonia. It only took 400 troops, actually, and it succeeded. It was also facilitated by moderate leaders on both sides, both the Albanian Muslim side and the Macedonian side, who were willing to work out an agreement in that case. That was a case where they were really close. They were up to preparation.

Another case where you could argue that the genocidal massacres had already begun was in East Timor, right after the vote for independence. Because Australia intervened with UN approval so quickly, within two weeks, and there was a multinational force that included Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and a lot of others, that genocide was stopped. It was a model of how this ought to be done. I think those are two good examples of how genocides, in fact, can be stopped. They were done both by the exercise of strong political will and with a strong state to lead.

This, by the way, is something that I specifically would like to underline for Canada. Canada is one of the few states with the capacity. It not only has international law and international human rights in mind, but it also has a strong military. You have a special role to play here, along with some others, like Australia, that really can only be played by a few states.

So I was delighted when Canada and Denmark and some of the other countries launched this idea of the standby high-readiness brigade a few years back. I know that Canada continues to be a leader in training peacekeeping forces through your institute here in Canada. We're only beginning to catch up. Our military is not really trained for that yet, and we need to be.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Of course, every other attempt at genocide that I can certainly think of was always perpetrated by either grotesque actions, like the ovens of the Nazis, or with conventional weapons. In this case, we're talking about the possible genocide of a nation, of a people, with a nuclear weapon. What complication does that play in the explanation you've given of some tactical ways to force a country to retreat from its actions of genocide?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

I think the main difference is that it will require a truly believable threat, as we learned during the Cold War, of massive retaliation as a possible response. In other words, Iran must know that if it decides to try to annihilate Israel using nuclear weapons, it will itself be annihilated. That's why I called upon this extension of the NATO umbrella, the nuclear shield, over Israel. I think it is a different situation from most of the others.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

My final question is this. Mr. Ottolenghi referred to the Cold War and the price that is paid, as he mentioned, by people in East Germany and, of course, some of the Soviet Bloc states. The relationships with Russia and many of the Soviet Bloc states is far from what I would say is warm--they're functional but not warm--so the added concern is that any kind of strike will proliferate into a much larger conflict. Of course, we had witnesses the last time who said they believed the missiles that will carry these warheads that Iran is looking at don't have any more accuracy than the Scud missiles that were used in the last conflict.

Would you want to elaborate on how serious this could get if any kind of strike were launched?

[Prof. Gregory Stanton]

I would elaborate even further than that. I'm convinced that Iran is the world's biggest state-sponsored terrorism and that, in fact, it would not be beyond Iran to allow some of its weapons to get into the hands of terrorist forces. If that happens, we are in very serious trouble, because nuclear weapons do not need to be delivered by missiles, even if they're inaccurate missiles. They can be delivered in tanker ships or in shipping containers and sailed right into the middle of New York harbour and blown up.

This is the nightmare scenario that all of us worry the most about in having Iran as a nuclear power. Or for that matter, having Pakistan taken over by the Taliban. It's why we do have this terrible, terrible proliferation problem, and I think it is still problem number one in terms of preventing this horrible scenario of nuclear annihilation. Nuclear annihilation isn't only genocide against Israelis; it would turn out to be genocide against a lot of other people as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you to both of our witnesses today and to members of the committee.

I want to remind our witnesses that if you have any further documentary evidence that you think is appropriate to submit in light of the discussion we've had today, you should feel free to do so. It could be distributed through the clerk, who will then ensure it's available in both languages to committee members.

I thank everybody for being here and I look forward to seeing committee members on Thursday.

This meeting is adjourned.