Calls are growing for Canada to start taking the threat posed by Iran seriously.

Among them is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which is urging Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree to secure Canada from further infiltration by Iranian agents and agitators, and to ban the glorification of terror in Canada.

“It’s really important that while things seem to be wrapping up with a ceasefire in terms of the current hostilities between Israel, the United States and Iran, that Canadians understand that the threat from Iran extends beyond its nuclear and missile programs,” said CIJA interim president Noah Shack. “(Iran’s) export of terrorism endangers global security and puts Canadians at risk, both abroad and here at home, and there are real public safety concerns in Canada when it comes to the Iranian regime that are in sharp relief right now.”

Former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler — himself the subject of a foiled Iranian assassination plot — told The Globe and Mail this week he fears the Iranian regime may have activated “sleeper cells” to carry out acts of violence within Canada.

Previous news reports have suggested that as many as 700 people affiliated with the Iranian government or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may be in Canada.

That also includes Iran’s funding of terrorist groups worldwide, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian terrorists, such as Hamas, as well as indications of Iranian money funding far-left and extremist pro-palestinian groups in Canada.

While flags of the Iranian regime are common sights at Canada’s anti-israel rallies, last weekend’s pro-iran demonstration in downtown Toronto — sponsored and supported by public service unions like CUPE and OPSEU — featured troubling language from participants, ranging from flags and signs supporting the continued attacks and eventual destruction of Israel to people holding photos of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“If I were a member of one of these unions, I’d be asking some tough questions — is my union representing my interests or are they standing up for a vile, theocratic dictatorship that brutally oppresses its own people while spreading death and destruction around the world?” Shack said. “There’s an urgent need for a gut check about who’s leading these unions and what are they doing to actually represent their members.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, published back in 2011 his book entitled “Palestine.” In explicit detail, the leader of Iran laid out his vision of how to destroy the “Zionist entity” phase by phase. Make life in Israel miserable and unbearable with daily terror from the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, from Hamas in Gaza, and from Hezbollah in Lebanon creating a never ending instability militarily, politically, economically, and culturally thereby threatening the national cohesion of the State of Israel. The final goal in his book ends with the dispersion of the Jews to their previous countries from which they fled or immigrated. It was no surprise that when the Iranian ballistic missiles began raining on Israel ten days ago, Palestinians everywhere celebrated and danced in the streets and on their rooftops, handed out sweets to passersby, and cheered on the destruction and havoc caused by these bus size ballistic missiles with 1.5 ton warheads. Yet despite this apocalyptic Islamist fantasy, and as the temporary ceasefire brokered by President Trump between Iran and Israel goes into effect, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is holed up in some descript bunker in the north of Iran with his immediate family, cut off from the world, exhausted and consumed with his hatred of the Jews and the State of Israel, wondering about the moment when Israel will decide to finish him off.

The Iranian regime’s stated goal from its inception has been the total annihilation of the State of Israel. This is not a slogan, but a cornerstone of Iranian religious, political, and military doctrine. Iran and its current regime leadership are indeed an “existential threat” on the State of Israel, having her nuclear arsenal and capabilities destroyed by Israel literally at the last moment. The Iranian plan to surround and coordinate an attack on the State of Israel with terror proxies; Hamas terror organization in Gaza, Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, the Houthis terror organization from Yemen, Syrian Army, culminated in a barbaric and savage attack on Israel on October 7^th, with thousands sadistically murdered, wounded, and taken hostage. Yet, from that dark day, from the depths of unfathomable suffering, when Israel was caught unprepared for the murderous onslaught, and arising from this painful low point, we can today proudly raise our heads after destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities that endangered the continuing existence of the State of Israel, after destroying the Hamas terror organization, after destroying the Hezbollah terror organization, after destroying the Syrian Army. The political and military leadership of all these enemies have been eliminated one by one and at times in clusters.

In the aftermath of the ten day war between Israel and Iran, Israel’s decision makers must calibrate their thinking about how to deter future adversaries whom despite being perceived as deterred, were able to coordinate an offensive initiative, rooted in the element of surprise, and inflict death and destruction on a local level, and severely weaken Israel’s strategic capabilities and dominance in the Middle East. Israel launched Operation “Rising Lion”, to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival, but no less to send a very specific lesson to future adversaries such as the nations of Egypt and Turkey. Both of these nations have quietly abetted and provided political and strategic support to the very same terror proxies trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Egypt and Israel signed a historic peace agreement in March 1979 to end hostilities and normalize relations. It marked the first treaty of its kind between an Arab country and Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel was viewed at the time as having reshaped the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict for the better. Yet for the past two decades, Egypt’s claim to de-escalate and bring an end to the conflict between Israel and her neighbors would be much more believable and credible had they neutralized and prevented the construction of hundreds of underground tunnels between the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Sinai Peninsula, the eastern border of Egypt. These tunnels some large enough to allow motor vehicles to pass through, enabled Hamas to import arsenals of weapons and unlimited materials to enable the construction of an underground military capacity that clandestinely threatened the State of Israel.

Although Egypt is a poor country, with a low GDP per capita rating, with tens of millions of Egyptians forced to live in cemeteries or boxes as a substitute for a home; Egypt has built up the strongest army among the Arab nations of the Middle East with over: 5,000 tanks, hundreds of advanced fighter warplanes and helicopters, over 100 naval vessels and submarines, and an estimated one million soldiers in uniform. A study by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies reported that Egypt’s air force has undergone the most significant modernization of any military in the Arab world. “From the point of view of weapon systems,” the author concluded, “the military-technological gap between the Egyptian and Israeli Air Forces is gradually narrowing.” In addition, the “Egyptian Air Force’s increasing confidence is reflected in its acquisition of aircraft for deep-penetration strikes into enemy territory.” Egypt now has some of the most sophisticated U.S.-made weapons, including Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter planes, and Apache attack helicopters. Western intelligence agencies are aware of and have leaked details that Israel – the country Egypt signed a peace treaty with – is the “enemy” in all of Egypt’s war games.

Turkey, one of the few countries in the world that most Americans do not visit, probably in response to the 1978 movie “Midnight Express” , portraying Turkey for what it is, a backward, sadistic, and corrupt nation.

Despite its 85 million citizens, Turkey has failed to position itself as an influential regional power. The current Islamist government’s new policy, which is premised on Neo-Ottomanize (a return to the Ottoman Empire’s glory days,) registered a series of stinging diplomatic failures in recent years. Yet Prime Minister Erodgan and his party have reinforced their political status within Turkey through the daily scapegoating of Israel in the “best” of Islamic tradition. Only recently Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador, suspended defense contracts with Jerusalem, announced legal action against senior Israeli figures in European courts, threatened to bring the dispute before the international court and “take measures for freedom of maritime movement in the Mediterranean” including positioning her Navy so as to interfere with the free movement of Israeli shipping and mining expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey has been a dominant and strategic partner to Hamas and her leadership enabling terror leaders to operate, coordinate, fund, and train terrorists in Turkey.

The epilogue to the current period ending with the total humiliation of Iran; militarily, technologically, and politically while exposing her true capabilities as nothing more than a “paper tiger”, and nothing close to the regional superpower the Iranians have falsely claimed. The lesson should not be lost on the nations of Egypt and Turkey. Both nations have large populations of poor and uneducated citizens, allowing them to become just another Islamic nation that can be overthrown at any time.

US strikes on Iran may have set the country’s nuclear programme back by several years, according to preliminary expert analysis.

Donald Trump’s claims that Iran’s nuclear sites had been “completely and totally obliterated” were likely to be an overstatement, serving and former US military officials said – but it is probable that all three facilities targeted suffered extensive damage.

Under best-case assessments, Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium has been severely degraded, if not destroyed. But the country’s existing stockpiles of uranium enriched to near weapons grade – enough to fuel 10 nuclear bombs – is thought to have survived.

Understanding the extent to which the US has damaged Iran’s nuclear programme is a vital in determining whether the strikes were a one-off or merely the opening salvo of a wider conflict.

America’s B-2 stealth bombers and cruise missiles struck Iran’s three most important nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. If the strikes succeeded in destroying centrifuge halls at the facilities, it would prevent Iran from further enriching its uranium stockpiles to a purity of 90 per cent – something it has not done so far, according to UN inspectors.

Satellite images of convoys leaving all three sites in recent days support Iran’s claims that it moved its 400-kg stockpile – much of it previously held at Isfahan – to a secret underground location shortly before the strikes.

But the damage inflicted elsewhere would still make it difficult to turn the uranium into a bomb.

Even if Iran had retained its fissile material, it would be “like having fuel without a car”, said Ronen Solomon, an Israeli intelligence analyst.

“They have the uranium – but they can’t do a lot with it, unless they have built something we don’t know about on a small scale.”

That is not beyond the realm of possibility. Iran succeeded in keeping its Fordow facility a secret for seven years before it was dramatically exposed, by Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy – then the leaders of the US, UK and France – at a joint press conference in 2009, following a joint intelligence operation.

Fordow

Of the three sites attacked, Fordow was by far the most important.

The last-known site developed by the Iranians was deliberately designed to withstand aerial attack.

An “engineering marvel”, in the words of one Western official, its main centrifuge halls lie buried up to half a mile inside a mountain.

Not only does a layer of solid rock act as a natural shield impervious to most bombs, but additional artificial layers of reinforcement are also believed to have been added.

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bomb – 12 of which the US dropped on Fordow – is capable of penetrating 60 metres of standard concrete before exploding.

But Iran is believed to have reinforced the centrifuge halls at Fordow with ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), which can withstand six times the amount of pressure of normal concrete – up to 30,000lb per square inch. If Iran used the best quality UHPC, Fordow would have been significantly harder to destroy.