{"id":116626,"date":"2011-11-30T10:07:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T10:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2011\/11\/30\/the-attack-on-the-british-embassy-was-awful-but-it-demonstrates-irans-growing-isolation-and-insecurity\/"},"modified":"2011-11-30T10:07:51","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T10:07:51","slug":"the-attack-on-the-british-embassy-was-awful-but-it-demonstrates-irans-growing-isolation-and-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2011\/11\/the-attack-on-the-british-embassy-was-awful-but-it-demonstrates-irans-growing-isolation-and-insecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"The attack on the British embassy was awful, but it demonstrates Iran’s growing isolation and insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Typically when a country ends all financial ties with the commercial sector of another country, the sanctioned tries to appeal to the goodwill and reason of the sanctioner. In the case of Iran, however, punishment for bad behaviour is met with petulance and acts of violence. No doubt those who advocate a policy of accommodation with the Islamic Republic will claim today\u2019s siege of the British embassy compound in Tehran as a vindication: “You see,\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0is what happens when you don\u2019t play nicely with the irascible mullahs.”<\/p>\n

But surely the theocracy’s pretence to being a rational or civilised interlocutor has just gone out the window along with tranches of British state documents.<\/p>\n

A few points worth mentioning before the diplomatic rigmarole or the UN enquiry gets going.<\/p>\n

– This was not a spontaneous student protest but rather a regime-sponsored mob attack on sovereign British territory, in clear violation of the Vienna Convention, incited by Iranian MPs who suggested the embassy should be “padlocked” or invoked the 1979 attack on the US embassy in Tehran (and subsequent hostage crisis) as a legitimate mode of retaliation against sanctions. The Muslim Students Followers of the Supreme Leader, who have reportedly\u00a0written<\/a>\u00a0their mini-manifesto in blood, do us the favour of demystifying whether this assault was waged in response to the wounding of \u201cnational pride\u201d or what have you. Just look at who they’re following.<\/p>\n

– Iran is increasingly paranoid and isolated as the International Atomic Energy Agency report on its nuclear programme more or less concluded that, yep, they\u2019re building a bomb and lying about it, too.<\/p>\n

– A series of\u00a0deadly attacks<\/a>\u00a0on Iranian gas and oil and military infrastructure — including a major one last week on a missile base that killed Revolutionary Guard General Hassan Moghaddam and his visiting North Korean guests and was so big it could be felt 30 miles away in Tehran — have been met with hilarious regime \u201cexplanations.\u201d No, surely not the CIA or Mossad or even armed Iranian oppositionists here. Rather, “bad welding” and shoddy workmanship were to blame. Here at last, then, was a coordinated act of violence in Iran that the regime could explain and support.<\/p>\n

– The Arab Spring has been a mainly Sunni-dominated affair, which isn\u2019t good for Shi\u2019ite fundamentalism. A Revolutionary Guard-concocted plot to off the Saudi ambassador to the US in Washington was recently exposed by the Justice Department. Expect more displays of tetchiness and insecurity in the coming months.<\/p>\n

– The imminent demise of the Assad regime in Syria will leave Iran with exactly one-half of a regional ally in the Middle East: that one-half constitutes some, but not all, members of the Iraqi political establishment. But already there are positive signs that Iraq is manning up to Iranian proxy influence. A military faction was recently formed in Anbar province to block the importation into Syria of Shi\u2019ite militiamen who have been facilitating Assad\u2019s crackdown. This is more bad news for Tehran.<\/p>\n

– Iranian propaganda in the West relies heavily on Press TV, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian government which has its European headquarters in London. Press TV has previously broadcast the interrogation of Newsweek<\/em> reporter Maziar Bahari, who was arrested for covering the 2009 presidential election, as an\u00a0\u201cexclusive\u201d interview; it trafficked in the most ludicrous conspiracy theories about 9\/11 and 7\/7 and brutal regime murder of Neda Agha Soltani, an early Green Revolutionary, which event caused Ofcom \u00a0— British broadcast news regulatory body — to consider withdrawing Press TV’s license. Given the way the channel has just gleefully aired the sacking of Britain’s embassy, the Cameron government should seriously consider ending the courtesy of hosting the regime\u2019s English-language propaganda network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_651c536113a8e","label":"Featured Image Credits","name":"featured_image_credits","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":0,"_name":"featured_image_credits","_valid":1}},"enable_paywall":{"simple_value_formatted":"No","value_formatted":false,"value":0,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_66009169342f2","label":"Enable Paywall","name":"enable_paywall","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"true_false","value":null,"menu_order":2,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"message":"","default_value":0,"ui":0,"ui_on_text":"","ui_off_text":"","_name":"enable_paywall","_valid":1}}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Michael Weiss","author_link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/author\/michael-weiss\/"},"featured_img":null,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Dispatch<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Dispatch<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 12 years ago","modified":"Updated 12 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 30, 2011","modified":"Updated on November 30, 2011"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 30, 2011 10:07 am","modified":"Updated on November 30, 2011 10:07 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["author_meta","featured_img","jetpack_sharing_enabled","jetpack_featured_media_url","coauthors","tax_additional","comment_count","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","series_order","jetpack-related-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116626"},{"taxonomy":"dispatch-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dispatch-city?post=116626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}