January 6, 2026: Isfahan, Iran: Iranians rallied in support of their government.
Statement of the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network
January 2026
US/Israel/Canada: Hands Off Iran!
The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (CWPJN) views with alarm the buildup around Iran of a US naval armada and of large-scale ground and aerial forces. These US forces, in combination with those of Israel, and other US regional assets, are gunning for an illegal war on Iran. As a coalition of peace and antiwar organizations in Canada, we condemn Prime Minister Carney for his government’s silence in the face of the Trump administration’s gunboat diplomacy in the Persian Gulf and call on him to distance himself from any further US attacks on the national sovereignty of Iran.
In December 2025, the US and Israel were involved in an attempted regime change in Iran. This operation was only the latest in a long string of US and Israeli attempts to overthrow Iran’s government through hybrid warfare including covert action, sabotage, assassination, demonization of leaders, delegitimization of government, (illegal) economic sanctions, disinformation, cyberattacks, and lawfare. The purpose is to make life so miserable for Iranians that they turn on their leaders. Why? Because the USA and Israel have never forgiven the Iranian people for overthrowing the pro-Israeli, pro-western shah in 1979; for nationalizing the oil industry and using oil profits to fund social programs; and for making allies of Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and Russia, among many others.
This latest bid to overthrow Iran’s elected government and to increase the suffering of the Iranian people was deliberately engineered by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who boasted at last month’s World Economic Forum at Davos that his government used what he called, “economic statecraft”, to collapse the Iranian currency on December 28th. The currency collapse, in turn, precipitated street protests by Tehran merchants, who feared their lifelihoods at risk. The Iranian government responded quickly to the protests by meeting with representatives of the merchants and acknowledging their just economic demands. In the process, the head of Iran’s central bank resigned and a replacement was named. However, as the protests spread, armed thugs appeared in the crowds – an eerie repetition of similar scenes from previous US regime change operations in Iran and also in Venezuela in 2002 and 2004, Syria in 2011, Kiev in 2014 – shooting at security personnel and protesters alike, setting fires, and throwing explosive devices.
US President Trump called on Iranians to keep protesting and suggested that “help is on its way.” Former CIA Director, Mike Pompeo extended New Year’s greeting to Iranians in the streets and “to every Mossad agent walking beside them.” On Dec 29, the official Farsi Twitter account of Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency) posted: “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”
The Iranian government responded by drawing a distinction between the economic protesters and those armed agents of foreign countries, seeking to transform the economic protests into a coup d’état. The turning points in the protests took place a) when millions of Iranians demonstrated their support for the Islamic Republic in every major city of the country and to bury hundreds of security personnel and first responders killed by the armed rioters; and b) when the Iranian government was able to jam the network of some 40,000 Starlink terminals (a US military asset donated by Elon Musk), which like the illegal firearms, ammunition, and thugs themselves, had been smuggled into Iran long before the USA collapsed the Iranian currency. Once the armed agents were unable to communicate with their foreign handlers, the armed protests and arsons petered out.
Despite the hype in western mainstream media, we know that this latest attempt to bring down the Islamic Republic had nothing to do with freedom and democracy or concern for the welfare of ordinary Iranians, because the clear intentions of the illegal US and Israeli meddling in the internal affairs of Iran was to put the autocratic son of the late despised shah into power. But, though the protests had ended, headlines in western mainstream media, claiming the deaths of more than 30,000 protesters, which derived from un-named, US-based “human rights” sources (read: “their own regime- change assets in Iran”), created a false narrative designed to trigger a US military intervention. Right on cue, Trump responded by threatening “very strong action” against Iran if it executed protesters and by announcing that an US armada was on its way to Iran.
The Iranian government recently issued an official death toll: 690 armed terrorists, 2,427 Iranian security personnel and civilians. The property damage toll was staggering with thousands of governmental buildings, private homes, mosques, stores, libraries, firetrucks, and ambulances all torched by the armed western agents.
There were a variety of people who protested inside Iran in the past few weeks because, as in every society, there are legitimate political differences, political parties, and interest groups inside the country. There is also, clearly, a foreign-directed destabilization campaign against Iran’s entire society.
In accordance with the UN Charter, what we all agree upon is that what happens inside Iran is only the business of Iranians. The horrific lessons of Libya, Syria, Haiti, Afghanistan, and other countries, destabilized by U.S. power, are too loud to ignore. Foreign meddling has no place in determining Iran’s future. It is our business as citizens of a NATO-dominated country to prevent the behaviour of our own pro-imperialist ruling class from affecting Iran.
And that’s where the CWPJN comes in.
Canada’s dirty hands
Previous governments of Canada have had dirty hands in the matter of Iran, as the US empire’s junior partner, from the days of its support for the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953 (because he nationalized Iranian oil) to Canada’s own illegal coercive economic measures against Iran, which come second in the world in intensity and duration only to those of the USA.
We call on the Carney government to:
1) distance itself from any US/Israeli military intervention in Iran;
2) re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran, cut by PM Harper in 2012;
3) restore Iran’s embassy and cultural properties in Canada seized by the Trudeau government in 2019;
4) terminate all of Canada’s coercive economic measures against Iran, its armed forces, and citizens;
5) remove Iran’s armed forces from Canada’s current list of “terrorist entities”;
6) develop an independent foreign policy by quitting NATO and observing the UN rules-based order which prohibits meddling in the internal affairs of, and threats of violence against, UN member states.
NO WAR WITH IRAN is something with which we should all agree – only through diplomacy and international law can the crisis with Iran be resolved.
The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (CWPJN) therefore calls on people across Canada to join in the growing worldwide movement demanding “US: Hands Off Iran!” We must be prepared to take to the streets against the murderous U.S. war machine bringing death and destruction to Iran and the region. We must support the right of the people in West Asia to sovereignty and self-determination.
Please stay tuned for any calls to action.