MONTREAL -- More than a hundred people gathered in downtown Montreal to call for a de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East, days after the assassination of an Iranian general by the United States.
General Qasem Soleimani was a senior official in the Iranian military who had been a key figure in coordinating support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the al-Assad government in Syria.
Soleimani was killed by an American military drone strike in Iraq on Jan. 3. His death led to speculation that war could break out between the United States and Iran, which has promised retaliation.
American president Donald Trump said the killing of Soleimani would not cause a war but rather, prevented one and that Soleimani was targeted because he posed an imminent threat to American lives. It’s a claim that Nassim Noroozi, a visiting lecturer in philosophy at Concordia University, said could prove short-sighted.
“The U.S. usually stops at a very comfortable narrative point when they want to justify their actions,” she said. “They don’t flash back to a few years ago where they were the ones who invaded Iraq or years ago when they instigated a coup against a popular prime minister of Iran when he tried to nationalize oil. Sometimes things might not look wrong in the first place but you’re just stopping at a comfortable point to justify your actions.”
“I think most of the people here are critical of the government (of Iran). They have been dissidents and activists that have been arrested before. We are not spokespeople of our government.”
Others in attendance criticized any support for the Iranian government as a small group of counter-protesters called Soleimani a terrorist. Others, however, hailed him as a fallen hero, with one demonstrator saying he “was not a person, he was a movement and he lives in the hearts and minds of poor people in the Middle East.”
