Ottawa's Iranian community watching nervously as tensions mount

Members of Ottawa's Iranian community are watching developments in the Middle East with worry after the killing of a high-ranking Iranian general by the U.S. and escalating rhetoric from both governments.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered in Tehran Monday to mark the death ofIranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Soleimani's death has brought a more mixed reaction from Iranian-Canadians in Ottawa, according to Mehdi Fallahi.

Fallahi, host of a long-running Farsi-language radio show at Carleton University's CKCU, said there have been heated discussions both at home and on social media.

I'm worried about my people.- Mehdi Fallahi, radio show host

"It is a tense situation. There are people who have been oppressed by the regime for over 40 years, and now they are thinking that one of the elements of the regime has been destroyed, so they find cause for celebration," Fallahi said.

"There are other people who are worried that this may increase the tension in the region, and more than all inside Iran. They're worried about their loved ones."

Fallahi said he worries this will give the Iranian government a pretext to crack down on dissidents, as it did during an earlier round of protests late last year. He said he hopesforde-escalation from both the American and Iranian governments.

"I'm worried about my people," he said. "If there is any war possible that it is a great, great concern for myself."

'Nobody wants to have another war'

VahidJamshidi,whose in-laws and extended family are in Iran, said people there want peace after the death and destruction wrought by previous conflicts.

"Nobody wants to have another war in our region or in the country," he said.

Jamshidi said he's been left wondering why Soleimani was killed despite helpingin the fight against ISIS.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered an air strike against Soleimani when the general was visiting Iraq.

• Who was Qassam Soleimani, the Iranian general killed in the U.S. air strike?

Jamshidi wants world leaders to condemn Trump over the nature of the attack.

"I condemn these kind of actions from any country to any other country," he said.

Pressure for new nuclear deal

Elliot Tepper, professor at Carleton University's Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, said the only legal justification is that there was an eminent terrorist threat to U.S. nationals.

However, he said it'hard to know exactly why Trump decided to act now when other American administrations may have had similar information on Soleimani.

Tepper said as unlikely as it may seem at the moment, the current crisis could in factlay the groundwork for a new Iranian nuclear deal. Iran pulled out of the previous agreement followingSoleimani's assassination.

"Both sides have said we don't want war. Both sides have said they don't want to fight, though that's hard to sustain in terms of Suleimani's role in the region," Tepper said.

"What we do know is a mastermind of terror has been taken out. We do know what he's built is still there."