Okay, I believe the big miss was the whole notion that, unfortunately, has taken over our political system, generally speaking. I think, within the Iranian regime, we can count on some so-called moderate elements. That, unfortunately, has proven to be counterproductive and futile.
It goes back to many examples. However, again, to give it a Canadian context, it goes back to the case of Zahra Kazemi, the Montreal photojournalist who was arrested, raped, tortured and killed in Iran just for taking pictures in front of Evin prison of the families of political prisoners. Now, in the aftermath of that, unfortunately what happened was that the Canadian government's response was very weak, and we did not follow through on our own promises.
I remember having a conversation with one of the released political prisoners at the time, who said that, right after the ordeal, the prison officials basically gathered all the political prisoners and said, “Look, we killed a Canadian citizen. Now Canada is apologizing. Who do you think you are? We can kill you all and no one would care.”
This is not the message that we should send to the Iranian people. We should send a message to the Iranian people that we support their legitimate right to self-determination and to choose their own future, and we support their resistance.