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World must respond to Iran’s attack on British embassy

By Ali Alfoneh and Daniel Vajdic

November 29, 2011, 2:48 pm

Today, several hundred militant students attacked the British embassy compound in Tehran, removed the British flag, burned it, and replaced it with Iran’s flag. The students subsequently released a statement in which they stressed that “seizure of the British embassy has taken place with 33 years of delay… the embassy of the Old Fox should have been seized earlier.” The statement maintains that the attack was “conducted by revolutionary students,” and that the move had “not been ordered by any organization or institution.”

But all evidence points to the contrary. The regime in Tehran must be held responsible for its refusal to respect the sanctity of diplomatic conventions. In response to today’s assault on the British embassy, Western governments should close their respective missions in Tehran, which would signal to the Iranian regime that there are consequences when it flagrantly violates international norms.

Two days ago, Fars News Agency ran an editorial titled “Is the British Embassy any different than the United States Den of Espionage?” and yesterday leaders of the Student Basij, a faction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), openly announced that “students will soon seize the embassy of the Old Fox.”

Interestingly, prior to the attack, Basij leaders called the impending seizure of the British embassy the “third revolution” (the first being the removal of the Shah and the second the seizure of the U.S. embassy in 1979). Thus, the Basij is trying to depict its assault against the British embassy as another turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Tehran believes that the orchestrated attack has intimidated the British government and demonstrated its strength to the Iranian public. But the British government and its Western counterparts should convince the regime that it’s wrong. Once again the Islamic Republic has illustrated that it’s an irresponsible country opposed to the norms and principles of modern state relations. In protest, the responsible countries of the world should close their embassies in Tehran.

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With Friends Like These: Tehran Criticizes Bashar al-Assad

By Ali Alfoneh and Daniel Vajdic

August 30, 2011, 11:26 am

The Islamic Republic has tried hard to depict the pro-democracy movement in the Middle East and North Africa as an “Islamic Awakening” inspired by Iran’s 1979 revolution. Few were convinced by the propaganda, but Tehran seemed to have the upper hand as long as the Arab Spring swept through countries allied with the West, such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain. The protest movement in Syria has changed this dynamic, and today the Islamic Republic risks losing a key ally in the region.

The Iranian press has hitherto presented the protest movement in Syria as a “foreign conspiracy” and a “Zionist plot.” Accordingly, the regime in Tehran has dispatched military advisers from the Quds Force (an elite security unit of the Revolutionary Guards charged with external operations) sent surveillance equipment, and injected the Syrian government with much-needed cash to keep the Ba’th regime afloat. The European Union’s impending embargo on Syrian oil, though long overdue, will make Bashar al-Assad’s regime even more reliant on Iranian financial support.

Recently, however, there’s been a noticeable change in Tehran’s rhetoric toward Syria. “The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen, or other countries,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said this weekend. “The people of these nations have legitimate demands, and the governments should answer these demands as soon as possible.”

Salehi’s acknowledgement of Syrian protesters’ “legitimate demands” represents a drastic shift, which may indicate that the situation is moving in an unfavorable direction for Assad and, therefore, Tehran. His statements reflect Iran’s new approach toward Syria. The Islamic Republic is hedging its bets and is beginning to slowly, subtly, and very grudgingly, court the Syrian opposition—lest it lose all influence in a post-Assad Syria.

Tehran’s new tactics are self-defeating. Statements like Salehi’s will energize the protesters in Syria, who will interpret them as Tehran abandoning its support for Assad. Despite Tehran’s best efforts, however, the Syrian opposition is unlikely to favorably view a regime that has supported Syria’s dictators for the past three decades. Moreover, Tehran’s move will most likely be perceived as an act of betrayal among the ruling elites of Syria and will further demoralize Assad. Mixed signals from Tehran may indeed hasten the Assad regime’s collapse rather than prolong its wretched existence.

Ali Alfoneh is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Daniel Vajdic is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.

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