Iranian-Canadians in Saskatchewan react to ceasefire talks and escalating conflict
Members of Sask.’s Iranian diaspora express fear and caution as conflicts in Middle East continue
As tensions between Iran and Israel continue to escalate, Iranian-Canadians in Saskatchewan are watching the ever-changing situation with a mixture of fear, sorrow and, for some, cautious hope.
A tentative truce brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed early Tuesday, just hours after both Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire to end nearly two weeks of conflict.
Pooyan Arab, executive director of the Saskatoon Iranian Cultural Association, said the ongoing developments have stirred intense and complicated feelings.
"These are times of very conflicting emotions," Arab said. "There was some relief in seeing how targeted some of [the Israeli strikes] are. But there's also a lot of pain knowing that, however targeted an attack is, there's bound to be casualties from the civilian population."
Arab said staying in touch with family members back home has been inconsistent, due to Iran's strict censorship and filtering of communication tools.
"These days it's very difficult to get in touch with people in Iran. The government has basically done a very strict filtering of the internet, and the phone system isn't working properly either," he said. "There's a lot of stress involved with this lack of contact."
He said many in the Iranian community in Saskatoon are worried not only about family members' safety, but what could happen if the fighting stops.
"From our previous experience with the Iranian government, we know when something like this happens, their next step after the conflict stops is to basically start a severe crackdown on the population," he said.
'It's more terrifying if the war ends without regime change'
In Regina, Shima Aghaaminiha is watching developments with a different kind of intensity. Born and raised in Tehran, she said she immigrated to Canada just over four years ago under compulsory exile by the Islamic regime.
Aghaaminiha said the current conflict may be an opportunity to remove the regime she fled.
"I feel hopeful that it would be the end of Islamic regime," she said. "I hope all the foreign countries also support regime change in Iran."
She said the biggest threat would be a return to the status quo without addressing the regime itself.
"It's more terrifying if the war ends without regime change — it is even worse," she said. "Because the Iranian nation sacrificed their life. A lot."
Aghaaminiha said Iranians have long opposed the regime's actions.
"It's an ideological war that Islamic regime is waging against a country," she said. "It's not the will of any Iranian people to be involved in a war with any of our neighbours."
She said she hopes the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi is able to guide the country toward democracy.
"Most of the Iranian nation, we trust him," she said.
Ceasefire wasn't negotiated in any traditional sense, expert says
Colleen Bell, an international relations expert at the University of Saskatchewan, said the truce was never a concrete thing.
"Trump announced the truce between the parties without actually pursuing a negotiated truce," Bell said Tuesday on Saskatoon Morning. "He sort of made the announcement and then sort of called the parties to tell them what he had decided."
Bell said this falls far short of the standards for a meaningful diplomatic agreement.
"I think it's fair to say that the truce itself is not really a classic truce, in the sense that it's not really a negotiated agreement between the parties in any kind of traditional sense."
She said Israel's initial airstrikes — which targeted nuclear and military sites, and killed Iranian officials — came just days before scheduled U.S.-Iran nuclear talks.
"Many people would argue that Israel wanted to sort of upset the apple cart because it really would like to see regime collapse in Iran," Bell said.
Trump's motivations may be more personal than strategic, Bell said.
"We all know that Donald Trump is very interested in trying to get himself the Nobel Peace Prize," she said.
Getting back to negotiating table
Bell warned that the collapse of diplomacy could push Iran to abandon international treaties and pursue nuclear weapons in secret.
"It's arguable that Iran is now incentivized to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," she said. "And arguably as well, Iran is incentivized now to secretly develop nuclear weapons, because states who are outside of the Western fold but have developed nuclear weapons secretly have survived. Think Pakistan, North Korea, Israel."
She said that even if Iran's facilities were damaged in U.S. and Israeli strikes, "it's not possible to destroy Iran's knowledge of the nuclear technology."
Ultimately, Bell said, what's missing is a country that will act as a neutral arbitrator.
"This issue requires diplomacy between the parties that's authentic and detailed, not just tweeted about on the fly."
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With files from Saskatoon Morning, The Morning Edition and The 306