1/ The images coming out of Iran are already unbearable. Reports of an elementary school struck by missiles, killing dozens of people, with scores more killed around the country. Fear and chaos in the streets as families run through smoke and search for safety.

The United States and Israel have launched an illegal act of war while Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu speak openly of regime change. This is what Prime Minister Mark Carney says he supports. He has issued a statement so brazenly belligerent that even Conservatives like Jason Kenney are cheering it on.

It’s a shameful moment that buries all of Carney’s high-minded rhetoric in Davos under the rubble.

These leaders justify this war as serving Iranian liberation. But the courageous movement in Iran that has been fighting tyranny for nearly five decades — and is still reeling from the worst massacre in the country’s modern history in January — will suffer a massive setback from these foreign bombs.

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2/ We remember the disastrous outcomes of previous U.S.-led wars of regime change in the Middle East, including in Iraq. They led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, sectarian conflict, and a world that is less safe, not more. The current attacks on Iran must stop now, before the entire region is plunged into conflict, death, and destruction.

My thoughts are with the people in Iran and around the world who are watching this unfold with heartbreak and uncertainty.

Freedom will not come from military intervention by outside powers, it can only come from the Iranian people. War is not the way.

#cdnpoli #iran