Apparently, even Iran fears the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams, also knowns as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL).

The Islamic Republic has stepped up its surveillance along its border with Iraq, according to Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli.

The minister told the official Iranian IRNA news agency, “Due to the unique situation in Iraq and its proximity to our western regions we have taken due precautions to shore up control, watches and fortifications along the border. But presently we have no worries.”

Over the weekend, ISIS captured three border crossings with Syria and Jordan, as well as four towns along the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Iran is expanding a “fifth column” in Canada. This warning, articulated by David Harris, former head of operations for the Canadian Intelligence Service and now a strategic intelligence expert, highlights some disturbing facts: many expatriates have been warning of the threat of Iranian diplomats conspiring in Canada; of the stealth workings of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and there is evidence of Iranian infiltration in the school system.

Recent evidence bears out Harris’s warning, as does the news that Iran is using its embassy in Canada to mobilize loyalists of the Islamic Republic to infiltrate the Canadian Government and attack the United States.

The Toronto District school Board recently suspended the operating permit of an Islamic school that had been using teaching materials to encourage boys to keep fit for jihad and for disparaging Jews. Upon being exposed, the Islamic Shia Study Centre, which operated the East End Madrassah out of a Toronto high school, issued a public statement: ” Our curriculum is not intended to promote hatred towards any individual or group of people; rather, the children are taught to respect and value other faiths and beliefs, and to uphold Canada’s basic values of decency and tolerance”.

The school curriculum, however, referred to Jews as being: “crafty” and “treacherous,” with “plots” and “conspiracies,” while contrasting Islam to “the Jews and the Nazis.” These passages came from two books published by Iranian foundations, which also taught children about “unclean things,” including pigs, dogs and “a person who does not believe in Allah.”

So here one can see plainly the covert nature of how the Iranian “Fifth Column” manipulates diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance and even decency in a feeble attempt to cover up its agenda.

The York Region Police hate crimes unit launched an investigation, based on a complaint from Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

The cleric affiliated with the Islamic Shia Study Centre, Imam Moulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, tried to cover up the now-public scandal by stating that the passages were wrongly copied from two websites; however further investigation revealed that the passages were excerpts from two books published by the Al Balagh Foundation in Tehran, as well as by the Mostazafan Foundation of New York, which the FBI indicated was a front organization controlled by the Iranian regime, currently the leading sponsor of worldwide terrorism, and the president of which, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, is not only outspokenly anti-West, but prominently threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

This material understandably alarmed Jewish groups, who responded that they were dismayed that such material had made its way into the Toronto District School Board. Such textbooks have also made their way into the Ottawa Carlton Public School Board, where Iranian hate literature glorifies a 13-year old child soldier who, under an Iraqi tank during the Iran-Iraq war, strapped on a grenade and blew himself up. In addition, it depicts Jews as the “sons of Apes.”

Moulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, the Imam affiliated with the Toronto Madrasah, is also the Imam of the Islamic Shia Ithna Asheri Jamaat of Toronto; he recently participated at Carleton University in Ottawa as a speaker in the 2012 Imam Khomeini Conference, entitled, “The Contemporary Awakening and Imam Khomeini’s Thoughts.”

Although presented as an Iranian cultural event, Carleton drew a sharp letter of rebuke from ten Iranian-Canadian academics for hosting a conference honoring the “founding dictator of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The signatories of the letter pointed out that Khomeini had ordered in a fatwa the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988; that he had shut down Iranian Universities for two years, and that he had ordered the imprisonment, torture and the execution of dissidents.

The pro-Khomeini conference was jointly organized by the Iranian embassy in Ottawa and the student group, the Iranian Cultural Association of Carleton University, headed by Ehsan Mohammadi, the son of Hamid Mohammadi, the cultural counselor at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa.

An alarming article just released by Fox News revealed that Iran is using its embassy in Canada to mobilize Islamic Republic loyalists to infiltrate the Canadian Government and attack the United States, as can be seen in a chilling interview with Hamid Mohammadi and shown on an Iran-based website. In his interview, Mohammadi speaks of Iran’s plan to win the hearts and minds of Iranians living in Canada. He projects that by 2031, the total immigrant population of Canada will grow by 64%, and that, due to their birthrate, the number of Iranians should substantially increase.

The sweetness of Israel has seeped into the lives of unsuspecting Iranians, in the form of cherries grown in the Holy Land, according to a report from Ynet.

Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported that the head of the Iranian produce association admitted the succulent berries featured in the Iranian market place were indeed Israeli.  Sold for $2.42 per kilo, they cost less than half of what they can fetch in Israeli grocery stores.

In May 2011, Deputy Iranian Trade Minister Hamid Safdel denied reports that Israeli apples and oranges were being imported by Tehran, stating “any kind of trade with the Zionists is forbidden… Since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979 no Zionist goods have been granted an import permit, even if they arrive through a third party.”

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has recently issued a fatwa declaring that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are all “haram” (prohibited in Islam).

According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani said on Wednesday that “the fatwa that the Supreme Leader has issued is the best guarantee that Iran will never seek to produce nuclear weapons.”

In their book “Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and Politics in Iran’s Proliferation Strategy,” published September 2011 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a think tank often described as being pro-Israel), Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji discuss the vital role religion plays in every aspect of Iranian politics, and the realistic prospects that a fatwa might influence nuclear policy.

The 46 Page book can be downloaded free in PDF format here.

Michael Eisenstadt’s essay examines the regime’s doctrine of expediency, which has guided Iranian decision making since the mid-to-late 1980s. He highlights the growing tension between this doctrine, which has generally led the Islamic Republic to act in a circumspect manner while pursuing an anti–status quo foreign policy, and the increasingly influential but less flexible doctrines of resistance (embraced by a new generation of hardline Iranian politicians) and politicized messianic Shia Islam (embraced by President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and some of his supporters) as applied to Iranian behavior and nuclear decision making.

Mehdi Khalaji’s essay looks at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fatwa proscribing the development, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons, against the background of traditional Islamic attitudes toward weapons of mass destruction and Shiite attitudes toward dissimulation and deception, and considers how these factors have been dealt with by the Expediency Council, which is responsible for advising the Supreme Leader on matters of national policy and resolving legislative issues. The author demonstrates how decisions in the Islamic Republic on these and other matters are grounded not in Islamic law but rather in the regime’s doctrine of expediency, as interpreted by the Supreme Leader.

Both essays conclude that if the Islamic Republic’s leaders believe that developing, stockpiling, or using nuclear weapons, is in its interests, then religious considerations will not constrain these actions. Past proclamations about the matter, like all fatwas issued by Shiite clerics, can be revised under new circumstances. And while the Islamic Republic has repeatedly put the interests of the regime ahead of religious principles, the growing role played by the doctrines of resistance and politicized messianic Shia Islam may well  increase the propensity of decision makers to act in an assertive manner. Such assertiveness holds the attendant potential for miscalculation and overreach, thereby complicating efforts by the United States and its partners to deter and contain a nuclear Iran.

The following excerpt from Eisenstadt’s essay is worth contemplating:

It is not clear how the acquisition of nuclear weapons might alter the logic underpinning Iranian decision making. It would seem that the doctrine of expediency would constrain reckless acts that could prompt nuclear retaliation against the Islamic Republic. After all, Iran’s leadership and the regime’s brand of revolutionary Islam will not survive if the Islamic Republic does not survive.

However, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now heads the Expediency Council, stated in a December 2001 speech:

If one day the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.

Whether Rafsanjani was engaging in idle talk or expressing a reasoned opinion is unclear. Either way, the fact that a pragmatic conservative politician responsible for advising the Supreme Leader on the regime’s expediency can make such a statement raises questions about the regime’s sobriety when it comes to nuclear weapons and Israel.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic’s efforts in recent years to inculcate a culture of resistance (moqavemat) that pushes boundaries and does not yield on matters of principle, along with an upsurge in Mahdist (messianic) devotion in some regime circles, raises additional concerns that Iranian decision makers might be more willing to accept risk, and less inclined to act with prudence and caution, than in the past.

RT.com reports that:

Ayatollah Khamenei, the highest authority figure within the Islamic Republic of Iran, is publicly applauding US President Barack Obama over the American commander-in-chief’s insistence in postponing any military pressure overseas. Although Israel and America have both expressed concern over the possibility of a nuclear warhead procurement program in Iran, President Obama has insisted on relying on diplomatic sanctions to squash any WMD projects, much to the chagrin of trigger-happy Israelis and the president’s Republican Party rivals.

Discussing Obama’s insistence on relying on sanctions over strikes, Khamenei was quoted on his website this week as saying that “This talk is good talk and shows an exit from illusion.”

Except that the praise is not without some rebuke. Khamenei said: “But the US president continued saying that he wants to make the Iranian people kneel through sanctions, this part of this speech shows the continuation of illusion in this issue.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, responding to calls from Western officials to return to negotiations over its disputed nuclear program, claimed that Iran is ready and willing for frank discussion about its nuclear program.

“They have this excuse that Iran is dodging negotiations while it is not the case,” Ahmadenijad said, referring to the Western diplomats. “Why should we run away from the negotiations?”

Iran’s top officials are alternating between alleged compliance with and open defiance of the West, with Ahmadinejad saying Wednesday that the EU oil embargo would not harm the Islamic Republic.

“Once our trade with the Europe was around 90 percent but now it has reached 10 percent and we are not seeking this 10 percent… experience has shown that Iranian nation will not be hurt,” Ahmadinejad insisted.

The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement Tuesday expressing “regret” and “concern” for Iran’s decision to enrich uranium near the city of Qom, despite the fact that Russia has persistently shielded the Islamic Republic from more severe UN Security Council resolutions.

“Hopefully, Iran will listen to our opinion about the need for further close cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the soonest beginning of serious negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program with the Sextet without preconditions,” the statement continued.