Diplomatic Niceties Gone Amok

Iranian students have had plenty of practise in exercising their sovereign right to upturn the Vienna Convention on the practise of diplomatic protocols and sanctity of foreign embassies. They have as example the siege of the American embassy in 1979 when the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was in its infancy and U.S. diplomats were held for 444 agonizing days of stand-off.

Inspired by that glorious event signifying the wonders of sovereign determinism, and spurred on by Britain's decision to increase sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, by isolating its banking system, a mob of students set up by their Basiji masters, engaged in full frontal attack on the British embassy in Tehran, as well as the staff compound.

Most Iranians are proud of their country's success in establishing a nuclear program, irrespective of their support for the regime. Among them those who deplore the current regime, whose mass protests for liberalization after the tainted re-election of Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought about the "green revolution" that revolved nowhere, simply sputtered in the face of violent regime repression.

The British flag was burned, along with that of the United States and Israel, just so that no one might err in misunderstanding the extent of the rage at the reaction of the international community to the latest release of information from the IAEA. Of course police were present. They witnessed the carnage that ensued as students entered and ransacked the British embassy, destroying documents, carrying off souvenirs. Nothing of this kind could conceivably occur without the support, however silently given, of the Ayatollahs.

Terrified diplomats sought safety from the mob in safe rooms reinforced for just such purposes. They were held there, effectively prisoners, under the circumstances, for hours. Until the regime finally gave approval for the police to clear away the protesters. The enthusiasm with which the police performed that duty could be estimated by the fact that the mob was able to re-enter the embassy to continue their rampage. They were said to be merely a hundred or so in number, hurling rocks, petrol bombs and other tokens of goodwill.

In the Iranian parliament some of their members were heard to have called out "Death to England", as though the student mob required additional inspiration, as they replaced the Union Jack with the Islamic flag, chanting "Death to England". This is Iran, led by fanatics who flame the emotions of nationalism and Islamism among their brain-washed youth, anxious to prove how faithful they are to Islam and the Prophet. So anxious that they are not entirely disinclined to offer the supreme sacrifice.

Martyrdom figures large in the passion of this faith of submission. Those whom they view as their deadly adversaries would not necessarily mind these faith-engulfed psychopaths ending up as martyrs as long as they didn't take anyone else with them. There can be no reasonable debates of ideology or appropriate social relations between such people. So the mystery is that Western democracies even bother to install diplomatic missions in Tehran at all.

There is no trust whatever between the regime and the representatives of foreign countries. The Iranian government elite consider the foreign presence of diplomats in their country as akin to hosting iniquitous dens of espionage-tasked enemies of their state. There may be some truth in that, since all foreign embassies are staffed with personnel skilled in interpreting and conveying vital statistics and information useful to their home governments.

With that well understood, all civilized communities and social orders recognize the imperative to offer security and respect to the representatives of other countries within their own. And they accordingly treat the embassies and living compounds of foreign visitors as is required; as though they represent the soil of those foreign countries; they are sovereign areas that must be protected and respected.

Unless, that is, your own sovereign nation is represented by a clique of maniacal fantasizing paranoids who imagine themselves answerable to no laws but their own.