As I said, once again, I'm very cautious about making any statements until I have all my facts right. I'll be very frank with you: I don't have my facts right, so I will not speculate.
What I do know is that a third of Iran's trade is with the European Union. Germany, for the longest time, has been Iran's biggest trading partner, but now it is the United Arab Emirates, largely because it's a transit point. Everything they can't get through the sanctions they now get through the United Arab Emirates. There is a trade relationship worth €30 billion between the European Union and Iran.
We know, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, 260 Iranian dissidents were assassinated in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and throughout European capitals. Very rarely was there ever a prosecution. This is the legacy of Europe's relation with Iran. I was recently in Europe and spoke to members of the European Parliament who openly said that the so-called Iran human rights dialogue was a failure. It was a way of allowing both Iran and Europe to pretend there was a dialogue while the situation of human rights deteriorated in the meantime.
Some in Europe, including the French government, among others, are now willing to take a more decisive stand, but unfortunately it's at a time when the United States feels that because of the excesses of the Bush administration one way, they are now committing excesses the other way, which is equally problematic.
That's why I think Canada has such an important role internationally in regard to also sending a message to its European and American partners that this is the best approach toward Iran. It's the middle approach between military confrontation and appeasement, both of which are wrong.