That's a very good question for which there is no easy answer. Some years ago, before this subcommittee, I spoke about the Islamic Republic of Gangster Capitalism. There is an inextricable relationship between giving economic incentives to religious and security elites and their vested interest in repressing all dissent and ensuring that they maintain power.
The economic situation is a direct reflection of the lack of transparency and lack of accountability. In the long term, without a democratic transformation, it will be very difficult to persuade the regime not to spend billions of dollars in Syria and Iraq or to let it go into the pockets of regime insiders.
Having said that, I think that there are ways of reaching out to the Iranian people. There are outreach strategies, where the Canadian government can invest resources in efforts to empower civil society. With the age of the Internet, there are many creative possibilities. Canada can persuade the European Union, in particular, which has strong commercial interests in Iran, to raise issues of transparency and accountability. There are a range of softer and harder measures which could be taken, but once again, I go back to the role that Canada has played as one of the biggest money-laundering centres for regime insiders. I think we need to take a long and hard look at how we have been accessories to this extreme corruption and take measures against it.