Carney ADMITS he was WRONG on Iran
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Summary
Mark and Mark are joined by George Ann Burke, a political strategist and communications expert, to discuss the fallout from Prime Minister John Carney's decision to call for an end to Iran's attacks on Israel and the United States.
Transcript
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Well, Prime Minister Carney admits he was wrong to call on the United States and Israel
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Yesterday, he issued this statement from Australia.
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Canada calls for a rapid de-escalation of hostilities and is prepared to assist in achieving this goal.
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When a reporter asked them about it later, Carney admitted it was the wrong thing to do.
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But Prime Minister, how can you have it both ways?
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how can you say you initially I understand your first statement you said was made in hours but
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you also said there was some predictability you knew this was going to widen so how can you have
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it both ways and in hindsight should you have called for de-escalation in that first statement
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no in hindsight to your to that point uh in my judgment uh secondly in terms of uh in terms of
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war. There are likelihoods, there are possibilities. You have to plan for the worst, but there
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Well, not only did Carney backpedal on calls for de-escalation, he says Canada could play
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One can never categorically rule out participation. We will stand by our allies, but it makes
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sense. There's a distinction between the offensive actions that were taken and are being taken
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by the United States and Israel, that were taken by them without consultation with Canada,
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with other allies, and we're not party to those actions. But we will always defend Canadians.
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We will always stand by and defend our allies when called upon.
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Well, since it began, Canada's position on the conflict has been a moving target.
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Ernie first endorsed the attack on Iran, then called for a diplomatic solution, condemned
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the attack as a violation of international law, and now it's floating the idea of active
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Meantime, there are Canadians stranded in Iran.
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The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Lebanon, and Israel.
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Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Nand says Canada is helping citizens leave any way they can.
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This morning, for example, we ensured that 75 people departed from Beirut on a commercial
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Another 200 seats have been reserved over the next three days for people who wish to
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As you can see behind me, more than 100,000 people across 15 affected countries have registered
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with Global Affairs in order to receive the most up-to-date information pertaining to
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Our guest today is George Ann Burke, political strategist and communications expert.
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Well, I mean, from a communications standpoint, well, we've been hearing from the Prime Minister,
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must be a nightmare. You, as an expert in communications and strategy, must pull your
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hair out when you see politicians take multiple positions over the course of four or five days.
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Actually, I'm kind of thinking that maybe his staff feels kind of like these people that keep
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getting put up to be the next Ayatollah. Although Israel is killing them off, they probably want to
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kill themselves off because they never know what this guy is going to say. He's actually held four
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positions in six days. And I don't know how that's even possible for anybody who really
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understands what's going on there. He could not possibly understand what's happening there. If he
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said, we think it's good, then we think it's bad. They're breaking international law. Then he says,
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oh no, I shouldn't have said that. Maybe I spoke out of turn. And then he's offering up Canadian
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soldiers. I'm like, what? What's next? Really? I mean, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier
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to me, maybe they're going to say they're fighting for Iran. Who knows? Anything is possible.
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So, yeah, the thing that scares me even more than his obvious lack of financial expertise,
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considering the condition the country's in, is he has even less understanding of the international
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order of things for foreign affairs and fighting wars and military. He has zero understanding of
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that. And unfortunately, he's with the Liberal Party, which has a long history of zero understanding
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of that. So he doesn't even have anybody to fall back on. So if I were a person, I'm a Canadian
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citizen, but if I was living up there now, I'd be super nervous about having that guy in charge of
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the economy, in charge of our foreign policy, in charge of anything, to be very honest with you.
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Yeah, I mean, he may have run into opposition from within his own caucus.
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Putting out a video saying, this is wrong, we can't trust the Americans.
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And then you had different positions from his cabinet ministers as well, with one saying, yeah, we support it, but we also support de-escalation.
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And so you've had a complete mess in terms of the messaging around this key issue.
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And I know you have to wait for tomorrow to see what he's got, you know, on his plate tomorrow.
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You just don't know from one day to the next where this guy stands.
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It just looks bad for the country on the world stage, doesn't it?
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It makes Canada look, at best, weak and, at worst, completely clueless.
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Now, I will tell you this, and I've said it before, and I know that you're very aware of this.
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The United States government does not think much of him.
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okay the israeli government i will tell you this i know not just the israeli government but the
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israeli people who and they keep up on everything they know who their friends are and who they aren't
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they despise him so every time he opens his mouth and says something stupid like they're
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violating international law um naftali bennett who was a former prime minister of israel and he's a
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very well-known um conservative i would say more conservative leaning and religious politician
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in Israel, but he's like a moderate religious person and a conservative. He heard it and he
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went, that is just stupid. That's what he said. He said, does he not understand that for 47 years
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they've been threatening not only Israel, but they've been killing Americans. They've been
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threatening everyone in the region. They have these proxy groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah
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and Hamas that they've funded to create havoc, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world.
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these are people that need to be taken down like rabid dogs. Really, that's what we're looking at
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here. I mean, that's the Israelis feel that way. And when someone like Mark Carney gets up and
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says, with some authority, as if he knows, they've broken international law, you don't know what
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you're talking about, and you shouldn't talk about things you don't know. You want to talk about
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that, you better get yourself a really good legal opinion before you open your trap.
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Yeah, we played that clip yesterday, and he was not, the former prime minister of Israel was not holding back.
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He just described the Cardi position as stupid, just flat out.
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Now, one thing that we have heard from the prime minister is that Canada was not consulted.
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And I guess the implication there is, you know, it would have been nice if they had let us know.
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But unfortunately, I think the United States doesn't trust Canada very much anymore.
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I mean, we're a hot shot of Chinese spying, so why would they trust us with something
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like that, you know, sensitive information, like when they're going to attack and that
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So, and what's interesting about what you're actually saying is gets to the real reason
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Trump understands that Iran is really a proxy of communist China, okay?
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He understands that they're, they're like joined at the hip and we have, in order to
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get control over China, over that relationship, over that power that they're wielding all
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And, and I will tell you, I know factually in Africa, the Somaliland thing that's going
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on over there, you know, Israel recognized Somaliland and Trump was very quiet when he
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said it, he was standing right next to him, which means that he actually agrees with him.
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Otherwise he would have not let him say it in the white house.
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right um and and there's a lot of move between israel and somaliland they see this as a new
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frontier against the chinese in in africa so this whole effort is to stop the chinese and
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you have to just like we had to knock off the the um the houthis and hezbollah and hamas
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who are the proxies for iran you have to knock off the proxies for china iran being a key one
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So this is really more about China than anything else.
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They haven't said it as much out loud, although it has been said.
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There are people who are actually talking about it in the government.
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And we should not be deceived by the anti-war, either members of Congress, a few of them,
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or even Republicans that are talking against this, a couple of them.
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We shouldn't be deceived by the media that doesn't understand this anyway.
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They need to listen to the people that are actually that understand what's going on.
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People like Tom Cotton, people like the president himself, Marco Rubio, you know, P.
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Hegseth, they are explaining what they're doing.
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What they did was they destroyed the Iranian Navy.
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They have taken out a ton of their missile sites.
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And now what they're doing is they've been watching where they've been shooting missiles
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from underground and they're dropping 2000 pound bombs on those spots.
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they're knocking out the underground missile silos so this is a very carefully thought out
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uh plan the other thing that i found very amusing so of course you know that last year
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um there was a they got there was a meeting of iranian bigwigs who all got blown up at the same
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time because mosad knew where they were so now they're going to get a committee together they're
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they're going to put a team together, which is going to be an anti-Mossad team. They're going
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to figure out who it is that's telling their secrets. What did they do? The whole team was
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Mossad. They didn't even know that they were hiring Mossad operatives. And that's because
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they think the Mossad operatives are coming from Israel. They're not. They're Iranians who are
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working with Mossad to overthrow this government because they understand they've got to get rid
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of them or their country will never be free. It cannot be free. So I was very amused when I heard
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that, I said, oh, that's just the best story ever. I just love it. It's wonderful. I mean,
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you speak about China. They have done nothing. They've looked very weak here.
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Oh, yeah. People think of Iran and China, to your point earlier, as best friends and allies.
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But while Iran has had the stuffings knocked out of it by Israel and the United States,
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Yeah, I'm actually shocked that they've been completely silent.
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You know, certainly haven't sent any arms or any planes or any soldiers.
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And as a matter of fact, the other, even Russia, buy it.
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And today, they bombed something in Turkey, the Iranians.
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Well, OK, maybe the Turks might have been a little bit more sympathetic to them than most members of NATO because it's a weird situation there with Turkey.
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Today, I don't think they're so happy with them, just like Bahrain is not happy, just like Abu Dhabi is not happy, just like the UAE is not happy.
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Jordan and all these other countries, they're picking and shooting bombs into these countries, claiming they're aiming for non-civilian targets and aiming for the Americans.
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Hotels and the girls' school story, of course, was completely made up, as usual.
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They bombed, I guess there was a misdirected missile that hit the school and killed those girls, which is horrible.
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I guess the question remains, like, what next for Iran?
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It appears that America now and Israel have total air supremacy over the skies.
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And what I understand is Iran won't have any missiles to shoot within a few days.
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And so what next, I guess, in terms of the leadership?
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Some of the people that the United States would have preferred to have seen taken over that country
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are dead as well. They were killed during the raids, initial raid, and then the raid that
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followed it. And so there's a lot of questions around what next. I mean, it's one thing for
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Trump to call for the Iranian people to take over their government. I think we'd all love to see
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that and institute a government that is accountable and responsible to the people. But it's hard to
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actually do that thing. And in the fog of war and all this confusion, I mean, there are questions
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Yeah, I think it's very interesting because I've been paying very close attention to people
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that I know from the Iranian community that are kind of very knowledgeable people who
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came from Iran or whose families, immediate parents, maybe they were born in Canada, but
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their immediate parents came from Iran and they've lived with this all their lives, this
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horrible period of 47 years when their country was lost to them.
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One, they're trying to create some kind of a division between the Kurds and the Persians and the Iranians.
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And the Kurds do want independence, but this is not the time to be talking about that.
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And I think that reasonable people understand that.
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But there are people that are trying to stir that up because they want to create havoc after this is over.
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Also, there are political parties there that are completely unacceptable.
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If you hear that the MEK is getting any kind of traction, you should get scared.
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OK, and I'm putting that is like being kind to them.
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I've known about the MEK for over 20 years and not just, by the way, in Iran.
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But they're out there talking like they're moderates.
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and I mean, I'm really disgusted with him, interviewed the head of MEK and treated him
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as if he's like an important piece to the future of Iran. In fact, most Iranians don't want MEK
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in charge. The question will be this. The military may pick a side. And, you know, these are,
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they did have a very good military in terms of trained people. They're not all dead. They're
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there. They may have arms. So the question is going to be, where are they going to be? Are
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Are they going to be with a secular, multicultural Iran, which is what it used to be?
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They want it to be non-religious, no religion, just secular, but allowing all people to practice
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their religions, allowing all their different cultures to flourish, but in a non-confrontational
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So the question is, are they going to get the kind of support they need to be able to
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I mean, the outside could be Iranians who've been living out of the country coming back and supporting change in their country.
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I'm feeling pretty sure that they're going to go back to Iran.
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Actually, one of my friends is very distraught.
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She was put as a teenager, 16, in Evin Prison for several years.
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She got out, and the family escaped and came to Canada.
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Her father was praying for the day that he would go back to Iran,
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and he unfortunately passed away four or five weeks, I think five weeks ago.
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And she's just so distraught, and her family's distraught,
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and she knows that his greatest wish was to be able to go back.
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I don't know that they'd completely relocate there, but they would go back to try to help the country, you know, get back on its feet.
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Trump is right to say, we don't want to do nation building.
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So the question is, are there ways we can support that, be helpful, without interfering?
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Regarding Canada's, just getting back to that one about not being consulted,
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because I think that's probably a bit of a sore point.
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I'm wondering if Canada's, specifically Mark Carney's cozy relationship with the Chinese,
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and you mentioned that a lot of what's going on in Iran is really about China.
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And now, of course, here we are about to receive, you know, Chinese made EVs, which represents a security risk.
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I'm wondering if I wouldn't buy one undermine our relationship with the Trump administration going into our negotiations, our CUSMA negotiations in a few months time.
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Yeah, I agree with you. I think this is. So first of all, he's not so crazy about Carney anyway.
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as you know there have been um some issues but this goes back before carney it goes back to the
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time when trudeau was in charge the five eyes stopped being the five eyes it kind of became
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the four eyes because they don't really trust canada and you think they're going to tell them
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any you're going to consult them or give them any advance notice of anything they don't trust them
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to keep their mouth shut they don't trust them because they are they're like sucking up to china
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you think that somebody wouldn't run to china and say oh i got some inside info for you
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huh no they're not going to do it uh that's like the same thing as the reaction to congress saying
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they didn't consult us well if we could trust you maybe we would consult you we told the gang of eight
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which is what they were obligated to do and the gang of eight is under such strict things if
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anything came out they would know where it came from right but that's all that's the only people
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they told and it was actually after the fact okay so they're being very careful and i do not blame
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them, and Canada can blame itself for the lack of trust, which goes back, as I said
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before, Kearney, and Kearney has done nothing to fix that.
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Yeah, I mean, you'd think that the Democrats were cheering for more casualties just so
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that Trump doesn't get a boost out of all this, a political boost heading into the midterms.
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There's that whole thing around the political impact.
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Now, of course, you've got the Democrats arguing against Trump's right even to launch this
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uh action against iran it's just such a confusing confusing thing for americans and the world but i
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i think trump is going to move forward continue moving forward on this yeah and so far it's but
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it's been a success last word to you yeah so the democrats and the you know couple of crazy
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republicans lost the vote in the senate i think they'll lose the vote in the house too um god
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God bless John Fetterman. He replaced crazy Rand Paul, and that's why they were able to do it.
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I think there will be Democrats that will support the war on the House side.
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There are a few that understand why this is being done, and they're not opposed to it.
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It doesn't mean that they love Donald Trump. They don't have to pledge their love and support for him.
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But they do have to say, we understand this is good for America. This is good for the world.
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This will remove a source of pain, suffering, and hatred from the world if we get rid of this horrible regime.
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And then the Iranian people will be free to hopefully create a new and better life for themselves, which they richly deserve.
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Georgianne, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
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