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Ding dong, the Ayatollah is dead and the whole world should be celebrating. While the Iranians were denying the death of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei throughout Saturday, the evidence points to his much welcome demise.

Khamenei had served as Supreme Leader since 1989 and was president of the Islamic Republic from 1981 through 1989. That means, Khamenei was more responsible than any other Iranian leader for the oppression and atrocities carried out by the regime in Tehran over the last 45 years.

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The shooting down of flight PS752 in January 2020, which killed 176 people including 55 Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents and 53 others with ties to Canada, lays at the feet of Khamenei. The recent killing of between 30,000 and 40,000 people involved in street protests against the leadership in Iran in the face of rising food prices also lays at the cold dead feet of Khamenei.

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Iran kills citizens of other countries, oppresses and kills their own

When 22 year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten by police and died as a result of that assault for not wearing her hijab properly in 2022, that was also on Khamenei. It was his morality police that decided that Amini must be arrested and beaten for not covering her head, not hiding her hair in public.

Iran, under Khamenei, has been responsible for oppressing their own people. Freedom of speech is non-existent, freedom of religion is curtailed, protests are met with mass killings and beatings, women have the rights that the men at the top decide to give them, and no more.

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For many years now, Iran has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism around the world. They have used proxy groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. They have armed militias in Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere.

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Iran has been responsible for terror attacks in more than 40 countries from Lebanon to Argentina, Saudi Arabia to Bulgaria. This is why Iran’s call for the defence of their sovereignty against “aggression” by Israel and the United States rings so hollow.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has spent decades violating national sovereignty to pursue their own perverted world view, and on Saturday they sat at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council denouncing attacks on their own sovereignty.

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Supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine

Canadians concerned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should also know that Iran has been testing and exporting its drone technology to Russia. The attacks on schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and more across Ukraine have all been made possible thanks to Iranian technology transferred to Russia.

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No one who looks at the facts should walk away with anything but support for the actions of the United States and Israel on this front. Prime Minister Mark Carney in a statement released Saturday morning said he backed the Americans.

“Canada’s position remains clear: the Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East, has one of the world’s worst human rights records, and must never be allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons,” Carney said.

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.”

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Canadian support depends on who is in White House

If these strikes were carried out by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden, then most Canadians would be cheering on what the Americans are doing. Because the president in the White House is Donald Trump, most Canadians will oppose this.

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As a country, we don’t make decisions based on our national interests, we make them based on how we feel about the United States. Right now, the vast majority of Canadians don’t like the American president and that is enough for many Canadians to oppose the strikes on Iran, the change in regime, no matter how justified it is.

We should all be celebrating that Khamenei and several senior members of the Iranian regime have met their final fate. We should also be hoping for a new dawn for Iran, freedom for her people, and peace throughout the Middle East.

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