The "clever-stupid" symbolism of the US raid on the Iranian consulate

[HamdenRice]

Of course, the raid on an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq is probably illegal under international law. One of the oldest norms of international law is that embassies and consulates are considered to be like the territory of the country the represent.

Even more importantly, diplomatic personnel have diplomatic immunity, which means that, with certain exceptions, they cannot be arrested and detained in the host country.

There are complicating factors: for example that the US and Iran do not have diplomatic relations, and that the raid took place in Iraq, rather than in the US. But certainly the raid violates the spirit if not the letter of the international norm of diplomatic immunity.

But consider the position that Iran is in. It must protest that the US has violated their diplomatic immunity by raiding a consulate. The response of course is, who is Iran to complain about this as the country that committed one of the most egregious violations of diplomatic immunity in history -- the Iran hostage crisis of 1980.

Of course, two wrongs don't make a right, but in the simplistic thinking of the few remaining Bush administration supporters, this will seem like just deserts. I can already hear the dittoheads saying that our raid was the way you are supposed to violate diplomatic immunity compared to the barbaric hostage crisis of 1980.

It is often said that while Bush is basically a stupid man, he has a kind of street smarts that connects with the kind of person who would support his policies. It's a clever-stupid kind of intelligence.


NB: This was posted originally in a thread about the news of the raid, but I think this is a somewhat different topic -- namely highlighting the relationship between this raid and the 1980 hostage crisis. Apologies in advance if this is considered unnecessary thread proliferation.

[geardaddy]

1. K&R'd

Do you think * is trying to goad Iran into attacking US forces in Iraq, thus setting the excuse to wage war on Iran?

[HamdenRice]

3. Yes I do

I fear a series of increasingly provocative measures intended to goad Iran into an act that Bush would characterize as an act of war.

Rumsfeld once said something to the effect that that when a problem seems unsolveable, the best approach is to escalate or inflate it.

Because they delivered Iraq into the hands of Shiites, and they see the main problem as Shiite militias, and Shiites take their leadership from Iran, they seem to believe the "solution" now is regime change in Iran.

[northernsoul]

2. good analysis - K&R!

This further erodes whatever dwindling moral authority we had left.

[malaise]

4. Consulates do not have the same status

as embassies.

[HamdenRice]

5. But the diplomats in either do nt

[malaise]

8. Yep n/t

[Squeech]

6. Of course

the Iranian students' raid on our embassy could be characterized as their response to our fomenting the coup against Mossadegh that put the Shah in power. Where does it start? Where does it end?

[HamdenRice]

10. The junta thinks it ends ...

with the US once again overthrowing an Iranian government, this time by bombing, and this time with the Iranian people greeting us with flowers and sweets.

[Ian David]

7. From what I remember, it wasn't officially the Iranian government that seized our embassy

A bunch of over-zealous students seized the embassy without official sanction, but then the government had to try and find a face-saving way to give the hostages back.

"Give us back the Shah so we can kill him, and then you can have the hostages. Oh, wait... the Shah just died? Well, we'll just wait until Ronald Ray-gun becomes president, then."

[HamdenRice]

9. Correct -- technically they did not violate diplomatic immunity

because the group that seized the embassy was not the government or its police forces. On the other hand, the US argued that the students were part of the Islamic movement that brought the ayatolla to power and the separation between the students and the government was a sham.

No doubt the US will rely on similar technicalities to pretent that its arrest of Iranian diplomats in Iraq does not violate diplomatic immunity.