Let me answer your question.
One thing we underestimate about the Iranian regime is this. Unlike Saddam's Iraq or North Korea, which are Stalinist dictatorships, the Iranian regime actually cares to some extent about its international reputation. These Iranian regime officials imagine themselves as supporters of a great global revolution, one that needs to expand internationally.
They're actually trying to be more popular. They're trying to gain popularity across elements of the Muslim world. So the naming and shaming element should not be underestimated. In fact, there are many Iranian dissidents today who are alive only because countries like Canada and others have actually named and shamed regime officials, highlighting the names of dissidents here and abroad, in Canada and Iran.
I think the work you're doing, for example during Iran Accountability Week in matching Canadian parliamentarians with Iranian dissidents, is critical to giving these people a name and a face and a story. It's clear to me that without that kind of exposure, those people would disappear in the night and never be heard from again. So keeping a spotlight on the individuals, not having this become a statistic, I think is number 1, it's critical. Number 2, actually designating the IRGC and the Basij Force for human rights abuses would be profoundly important, not only substantively but symbolically.
Again, these are individuals who are free to travel around the world and use Iranian embassies for diplomatic cover. Certainly, Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor, released a 500-page report only yesterday on the 1994 AMIA bombing, which Dr. Levitt talked about. What Dr. Nisman actually underscored is that the Iranians have used that AMIA business model to extend their influence through Latin America and around the world, using embassies, mosques, cultural bureaus and the whole infrastructure that affords the Iranian regime much flexibility and operational freedom to plan terrorist attacks and intimidate dissidents.
Again, I would applaud the Canadian government for having recognized that the Iranian embassy in Ottawa was being used for exactly that purpose, including for intimidation of Iranian Canadians, and for having expelled these so-called Iranian diplomats from Ottawa who, in many cases, were intelligence agents and IRGC officials. I think that was a very powerful message that you sent. I would encourage you to encourage your colleagues in Latin America and in Europe to do exactly the same thing.