In the face of international condemnation of Iran's destructive pursuit of nuclear weapons and its repeated calls for Israel's destruction, filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau reports that Iran's atomic ambitions are for "defensive" purposes only, serving as an effective "deterrent" against Israeli "aggression" and belligerence. That is at least the way Trudeau framed the second instalment of his three-part documentary that aired on CBC's The National on October 14.

The trouble is, the Iranian leadership is not Pakistani, nor Indian, nor like any other nuclear regime. If Iran has nuclear weapons, one can be assured that some terrorist organization will also get access to them. What if Hamas had an Iranian-made nuclear device?

The idea that Canada would now support an unlawful act of aggression by Israel, itself a nuclear power that has rejected the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, based on arguments that Iran is violating its obligations under that same treaty, should be abhorrent to most Canadians.

The U.S. and EU pass travel bans to great fanfare, yet ignore them completely when sanctioned officials travel to meetings of international organizations. As Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL) wrote, these measures are meaningless if loopholes allow sanctioned Iranian officials to travel freely.