Michael McCain, the chief executive of one of Canada’s largest food companies, has pointed the finger at the US over the escalation of tensions in the Middle East, which resulted in Iran erroneously shooting down a Ukrainian plane last Wednesday.
“A narcissist in Washington tears world accomplishments apart; destabilises [a] region,” McCain tweeted on Monday.
..A narcissist in Washington tears world accomplishments apart; destabilizes region. US now unwelcomed everywhere in the area including Iraq; tensions escalated to feverish pitch. Taking out despicable military leader terrorist? There are a hundred like him, standing next in line
— Maple Leaf Foods (@MapleLeafFoods) January 13, 2020
The Maple Leaf Foods CEO went on to claim that “U.S. government leaders unconstrained by checks/balances, concocted an ill-conceived plan to divert focus from political woes”.
“The world knows Iran is a dangerous state, but the world found a path to contain it”, McCain asserted, adding that the wife and 11-year-old son of his colleague were among those Canadian citizens who died in the Wednesday plane crash.
His remarks come as Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander of the Iranian Armed Forces' Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), apologised for downing the Ukrainian Boeing 737, according to Iran's ISNA news agency.
"Never in my life was I so ashamed. Perhaps we made a mistake that caused many of our compatriots to die. However, we did it unintentionally, we apologise," ISNA cited Salami as saying during his speech in the Iranian parliament.
Iran Admits to Erroneously Downing Ukraine Plane
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed near Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport minutes after take-off on 8 January. The crash killed all 176 people on board, including 57 Canadians as well as citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Germany, Sweden and the UK.
On Saturday, the Iranian military acknowledged full responsibility for erroneously downing the jetliner over Tehran, saying that its air defence system confused the Ukrainian passenger plane with a hostile cruise missile and due to disrupted communication, the operator made the unilateral decision to shoot it down.
Iranian authorities extended their condolences to the families of all the victims who perished in the deadly catastrophe and pledged to hold all those responsible to account.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, underscored during a press conference in Ottawa late last week that he still has "many questions" in relation to Iran’s downing of the Ukrainian plane, insisting that "full clarity" is needed.
The incident took place shortly after Tehran carried out missile attacks against American military facilities at the Ayn al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq and in Erbil, in retaliation for the assassination of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike on 3 January.
The strike was ordered by US President Trump, who hailed the destruction of “the terrorist number one anywhere in the world”; it was later condemned by Tehran as an act of international terrorism.
