As the U.S.-Israeli air strikes bombarded Iran\u2019s capital Tehran, Friday, Iranian Montrealers were conflicted over the war which enters its seventh day.<\/p>\n
They say that the longer the fighting continues, the more uncertain they are about what the coming days will bring.<\/p>\n
Some like Mojan Safari said the attacks were necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no choice,\u201d Safari said. \u201cWe just need the foreign forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ayrik Armani, organizer of the Iranian Youth House Montreal, agreed with Safari, \u201cSometimes war is the only solution which can help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, as Israel\u2019s military said it had launched a \u201cbroad-scale wave of strikes\u201d on the country\u2019s capital, home to 10 million people, other Iranian Montrealers denounced the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no accountability either for Israel or America who are involved,\u201d said Mina Fakhravar. \u201cThis is an illegal war that they are implicating themselves into.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fakhravar said it was \u201cvery absurd\u201d that supporters of the Iranian monarch would thank U.S. President Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis war doesn\u2019t belong to Iranian civilians,\u201d he added. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want this war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armani said the oppression by the Iranian regime meant there were not many options. <\/p>\n
According reports, thousands of Iranian people were killed in a nationwide protest by the regime in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting killed by your own police and government,\u201d Armani said. \u201cThis is something that there is there are not many solutions for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sharp divide among in the Iranian diaspora on the U.S.-Israeli operations also extended to Canada\u2019s potential involvement in the war.<\/p>\n
Earlier Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada was not involved in the air strikes that began the war, known as Operation Epic Fury, adding, \u201cWe were not consulted in this military operation and have not participated.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney didn\u2019t \u201ccategorically rule out\u201d Canadian military\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gladly waiting for the day that I hear that Canada is supporting this cause as well along with Israel and America,\u201d Armani said.<\/p>\n
Fakhravar, however, said that she hoped it doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIranian people in Iran never asked for the war and we hope that Canada doesn\u2019t get involved,\u201d Fakhravar said.<\/p>\n
As the war escalates and Trump said he wanted to be involved in choosing the country\u2019s next leader, Iranian Montrealers said they hope the country\u2019s future is decided by its own people.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cNo one can talk about the future leadership except the people of Iran,\u201d Safari said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny change should (be brought) by its own people, by civil society, it doesn\u2019t come with the bombs,\u201d Fakhravar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the U.S.-Israeli air strikes bombarded Iran\u2019s capital Tehran, Friday, Iranian Montrealers were conflicted over the war which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-519614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}