Canada on Iran: Hate the banks; love the banksters

Canada, the US and the UK announced sanctions against Iran today :

"in an effort to pressure Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. The British announced the first measures, declaring they would cut off all financial ties with Iranian banks to stem the flow of funds for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs."

Although Haaretz reported this wee additional morsel about slightly more selective US sanctions :

"One U.S. official told ABC that Iran’s Central Bank and oil and gas sector would not be targeted in this new round of sanctions out of fear that these measures would lead to increased oil prices, and damage to the U.S economy."

also borne out in the NYTimes


Meanwhile, back in Canada, Iranian banksters connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been quietly salting it away and settling down in their million-dollar mansions in Toronto and Montreal (italics mine):

A recent example is the former head of Iran's Melli and Sepah Banks, Mahmoud Reza Khavari, who acquired Canadian citizenship under questionable circumstances and then fled this October to his multi-million-dollar Toronto mansion following a $2.6 billion embezzlement scandal in Iran. 

Khavari has ties to Ahmadinejad, currently engaged in a bitter power struggle against the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The banks he led are blacklisted by the UN Security Council and the U.S. government for supporting Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear and ballistic missile technology. The banks are also closely linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

More.  More.  More.  More

Well the important thing here is to beggar Iran for the benefit of Israel, nukes or no nukes, right?

"Remember," said former Chief of the Strategic Planning Division of the Israeli Defense Forces Shlomo Brom  in October 2004 referring to 25 years of almost constant "Iran nearly has the bomb!"alarums :

"the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time passes but they’re always five to seven years from the bomb."

For an exhaustive list of fear-mongering about Iran's imminent nukes beginning in 1984, see Wide Asleep in America : The Phantom Menace (h/t Pogge)
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