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Photo by J Rolli / SunMedia

Canadian Kaveh Shahrooz, a Harvard law graduate and human rights activist from Iran, while first making his myriad differences with Trump clear, wrote recently that Tehran “ultimately responds to sticks not carrots. Trump demonstrated this in April 2019 when he designated Iran’s notorious Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. Pundits predicted violence, but nothing occurred. And none has come in the wake of the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, the monstrous Qods Force commander.”

Shahrooz readily concedes that Trump is so unpredictable that everything might come to naught. But for the time being, “Trump’s Iran policy has been consistent, coherent and robust. It would be unfair if we allow our disagreements with him on other matters to cloud our judgment on this one. Because, as the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

Another Canadian of Iranian origin, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, whose family fled after the 1979 revolution, thinks Iranians will obtain their freedom, noting:

“When I first learned of the plane crash I was shocked and deeply saddened … I read the profiles of the victims one by one. When it was confirmed … I was furious. Once again, the incompetent, negligent and corrupt regime was responsible for the loss of innocent lives … Iran was still mourning the more than 1,500 peaceful protesters … killed by regime officials in November … ”

No impartial person can accept that the Revolutionary Guard operators who fired two Russian-made SA-15 surface-to-air missiles at Flight 752 honestly believed that the rising and departing passenger aircraft was an incoming cruise missile.