Iran will alter its nuclear doctrine if Israel threatens its nuclear facilities or its existence, an advisor to the country’s ruler said Thursday, in a second similar threat in less than a month.
“If they dare to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will change. We have experienced deterrence at the conventional level so far. If they intend to strike Iran's nuclear capabilities, naturally, it could lead to a change in Iran's nuclear doctrine,” Kamal Kharrazi said.
He added that Iran has so far refrained from developing nuclear weapons, “But if Iran's existence is threatened, we are forced to change our nuclear doctrine. Recently, military officials also stated that if Israel intends to attack nuclear facilities, reconsidering Iran's nuclear doctrine and policies, and deviating from past declarations, is possible and conceivable.”
Ali-Akbar Salehi, who was foreign minister more than a decade ago and is still a key foreign policy voice in the Iranian government, also said last month that Iran has everything it needed to build a nuclear bomb, as tensions rose with Israel amid the Gaza war.
In a televised interview in April, Salehi, was asked if Iran has achieved the capability of developing a nuclear bomb. Avoiding a direct answer he stated, "We have [crossed] all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology.”
It is believed that Israel conducted two spectacular sabotage operations in 2020 and 2021 against Iran’s large nuclear facility in Natanz, located in the center of the country.
Tehran has always insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful, and it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. However, its actions since late 2020 point to a trajectory of escalating its nuclear threat by enriching a substantial amount of uranium to 60-percent purity, which has no civilian use.
Kharrazi's new statements are clearly designed to be a deterrence to any Israeli plans to attack its nuclear facilities. Although he also threatened a change of doctrine if Iran’s existence is threatened, any Israeli attack will most likely be aimed at valuable strategic targets, not at obliterating Iran. It is possible that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor was referring to possible Israeli threats against the regime and its leaders, not the existence of Iran as a country.
Iran is seen as the main military backer of the Islamist Hamas and is suspected of having assisted the planning of the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than one thousand people. Since then, Tehran has relentlessly supported Hamas, and has encouraged its Houthi military proxies to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea to force Israel to back down.
Tensions led to a direct confrontation when on April 13 Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were shot down by Israeli air defenses and the US, British and Jordanian air forces. Kharrazi expressed his pride on Thursday saying that the myth of Israeli deterrence was shattered both on October 7 and in April.
On April 18, a senior IRGC commander had also warned that Tehran could change its nuclear policies if Israel continues to threaten to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, tacitly suggesting no cooperation with world bodies and building a nuclear bomb.
“If the fake Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking nuclear sites to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable for the Islamic Republic to revise its nuclear doctrine and policies, and deviate from its past declared considerations,” said Ahmad Haghtalab, who oversees the security of Iran’s nuclear sites.
The constitutional weight of the adoption of the report cannot be exaggerated for it is non-binding for the government and the government could very well never re-introduce any bill for its implementation. Politically, however, the unanimous adoption of the report marks a step forward in Canada’s sluggish progress to designate IRGC as a terrorist entity.
The report paves the way for the introduction of Bill-350, State Immunity Act, as a set of amendments to the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act proposed by MP Hon. Garnett Genius. Whether or not the governing Liberals step up to the plate and designate IRGC as a terrorist organization, it is abundantly clear that the Trudeau government has already crossed Rubicon of confronting the Iranian regime, be it through going after IRGC and its special forces branch, the Quds Force, or via tackling the Canadian network of the relatives of the Iranian regime’s ruling echelon.
The burning question is whether the next step to tackle the IRGC and its active measures operatives in Canada will transpire in the form of both actionable legislation and action on behalf of the Canadian RCMP, CSIS, and Canada’s financial crime and FATF enforcement institutions. Indeed, Canada-Iran relations have gone through four distinct period since 2012.
The first period dates back to parliamentary debates on the question of designating IRGC in its entirety as a early as 29 March 2012, when Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper were at the helm. These debates took place in the context of a surge in human right violations by the Iranian regimes; starting with the death of Iranian Canadian Zahra Kazemi at the hands of the Iranian security forces in 2003 and the regime’s brutal suppression of 2009 presidential election protests.
Harper’s government implemented a series of measures that emerged in the form a comprehensive diplomatic confrontation against the Islamic regime of Iran. From cutting all diplomatic relations with the Iranian by closing the Canadian embassy in Tehran to designating IRGC’s Quds Force as a terrorist organization. However, Harper’s government did not go beyond these measures and only did join the UN mandated international sanctions against the Iranian regime concerning its nuclear program. Moreover, Harper’s government did nothing to stop former members of the ruling elite and/or IRGC top brass relatives from calling Canada home through various visa schemes made available to them through Canada’s Immigration system.
With Trudeau’s liberals taking over in November 2015, the government of Canada did not seek to undo the measure taken by the previous the conservative government but did not seem to have done anything to put into action any of those measures in a concrete manner. Indeed, the Canadian Senate considered bill S-219 (An Act to deter Iran-sponsored terrorism, incitement to hatred, and human rights violations) in February 2016 that would designate IRGC as a terrorist entity in its entirety.
Then, in 2018, the very MP Hon. Genius did sponsor another non-binding motion 018 to designate IRGC as a terrorist. For reasons that still befuddle most observers, the government, which enjoyed an overwhelming majority at the time, defeated the motion.
Without getting bogged down in the minutia of the history of this period, the turning point that galvanized the Iranian-Canadian community to pressure Trudeau’s government into concrete action was January 2020 shot-down of Ukrainian PS752 passenger airliner with 63 Canadians on board and almost a dozen more Canadian permanent residents by the IRGC air-defense batteries. From this point onward the liberal government began to adopt more concrete actions, starting with a series of sanctions against IRGC top brass and other high-ranking members of the Iranian regime.
However, the government stopped short of taking any concrete action from preventing the regime officials’ relatives from settling in Canada, nor did it introduce a Magnitsky style act for the Iranian regime officials who had profited from human rights violations.
The fourth period starts with Iran’s autumn 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising and continues to date. The government began to roll out new sanctions against Iranian officials implicated in the brutal uprising culminating public consultation to stop the former officials and their relatives to use the proceeds of their crime for settling and/or investing in Canada. As of 2023, with Immigration Canada joining in the action by deporting several former senior regime officials, Canada seems to be gearing up for more concrete punitive actions against the Iranian regime.
Today’s vote thus marks a point of no return for Trudeau liberals. First, in the 2018 vote that defeated a similar motion by MP Genius, the two Iranian Canadian MPs Messrs Ali Ehssasi and Majid Jowhari were conspicuously absent from the vote. Today, however, both were present. In so far as speculation goes, it is likely that the gentlemen chose not to attend the session as they did not wish to vote “yes” against the wishes of a government, and one might say PM Trudeau, that was determined to defeat the motion.
Also in 2018, Trudeau’s government enjoyed a comfortable majority, which it no longer enjoys, and it may soon have to face Iranian-Canadians at the ballot box in a general election. The government can also no longer ignore reports of threats against Canadians by the Iranian regime on Canadian soil. Thus, whether or not Trudeau’s government would take action and pass Genius’ Bill-352 into legislation, with this motion it can longer remain sit on its hands and do nothing further. In the end, the winds of change may force it to do so as it will set sails soon for another election campaign.