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The Islamic Republic of Iran must take delight in commentators in the West who advance the regime’s public relations agenda free of charge.

Here in Canada, one analyst claims that normalizing ties with Iran will be difficult because the Harper government craftily left behind two “booby traps:” a bill called the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (JVTA) and a concomitant designation of Iran as a supporter of terrorism. The former enables Canadians to sue local and state sponsors of terrorism for compensation for terrorist attacks, the latter renders Iran vulnerable to these types of lawsuits.

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Here is an alternate theory: Iranian misbehaviour has booby-trapped relations between the two countries over the last 36 years.

In November 1979, militant Iranian students in co-ordination with radical clerics stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 people hostage for 444 days. The Iranian security establishment did nothing to stop the takeover, while Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of post-Islamic Revolution Iran, praised the perpetrators for their illegal acts.