The shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was a premeditated act of terrorism performed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
The announcement triggered further calls for Western nations to identify the IRGC as a terrorist group and take other steps to make Iran responsible for such acts.
Ironically, the Canadian court’s decision came only a day after British, French, and German officials had their latest discussions with Iranian counterparts, signaling that rescuing the 2015 nuclear deal and restoring sanctions relief for the Iranian regime remains their top priority.
In response to its initial attempt to portray the IRGC missile strike as a “technical problem” with the targeted plane, Tehran received no international pressure. Because of the lack of a coordinated reaction, affected countries are still conducting investigations to this day, including Canada, which had 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents on the flight.
When Flight 752 was targeted by two IRGC it crashed minutes after taking off from Tehran’s Khomeini International Airport, killing 176 passengers and crew members.
The conclusion was based in part upon testimony about safeguards in the IRGC’s weapons systems and procedures, which would have made it practically impossible for a civilian airplane to be mistaken for a missile fired by a hostile state, as Tehran claims.
When one realizes that this isn’t even the regime’s first cover narrative, suspicion falls even more heavily on it. The first reaction of the top authorities was to deny any responsibility, implying that they were aware of the possibility for a massive backlash if the truth about what happened on 8 January 2020 was revealed.
On the world stage, Tehran’s denial and deflection campaign appear to have worked. The dictatorship received no sanctions or diplomatic isolation as a result of its effort to disguise the killing of 176 persons.
Tehran has been in total non-compliance for well over a year, and as a result, its nuclear developments have surpassed what was predicted before the start of the discussions that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
However, the dictatorship has received no sanctions for this as well. European policymakers and diplomats, on the other hand, have expressed a willingness to assist Iranian firms in evading US sanctions and retaining some of the economic benefits of a deal that Tehran has consistently broken.
Following the Ontario court’s ruling, the IRGC will continue to bypass a terrorist status, and the Iranian regime will continue to be a welcome participant in standard diplomatic interactions, reinforcing the notion that Tehran enjoys impunity in matters of terrorism and human rights abuses.
Following a nationwide uprising among its own people in March 2018. Iranian agents were discovered plotting to detonate a truck bomb in Albania at the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran) New Year gathering. In June, European officials prevented the bombing of such gathering for Iran’s freedom organized by Iran’s National Council of Resistance just outside Paris.
Following the ruling on Flight 752, the international community must not ignore the actual murder of dozens of Canadian, British, Swedish, and Ukrainian people.
If the Ontario court’s decision does not result in concerted action, Tehran’s sense of invincibility will be reinforced, and the regime will almost certainly become even more obstinate in nuclear talks and other areas affecting Western interests and world security.
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