CAIRO —
Britain said Wednesday it was flying diplomats out of Tehran a day after Iranian protesters shouting “Death to England” stormed the British Embassy compound and a diplomatic residence, tearing down the British flag, smashing windows, defacing walls and briefly detaining six staff members in what appeared to be a state-sponsored protest against Britain’s tough new economic sanctions against
Iran.
The attack was the most serious diplomatic breach since
the traumatic assault on
the United States Embassy after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, expressed outrage over
the attack, saying Britain held Iran’s government responsible and promising “o
ther, fur
ther, and
serious consequences.”
In a statement early on Wednesday,
the Foreign Office in London said
the British authorities believed “
the safety of our staff and
their families is our immediate priority. In light of yesterday’s events and to ensure
their ongoing safety, some staff are leaving Tehran.”
The statement did not go into detail or say whe
ther
the embassy would remain open.
The scale of
the attack — led by hundreds of students described as members of
the Basij militia by
the Iranian state media — appeared to surprise even some Iranian officials. Later in
the day, Iran’s Foreign Ministry
releasedan uncharacteristic expression of regret that contrasted sharply with
the angry rhetorical jabs at Britain issued a day earlier by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s leaders, buffeted by
the new sanctions, a collapsing economy and increasingly bitter infighting among
the political elite, may have welcomed a chance to change
the subject, analysts said. But
the episode also appeared to be a shot across
the bow aimed at
the West, in line with Tehran’s old policies of escalating defiance.
“Khamenei’s philosophy is often to react to outside pressure with provocation, to imply that Western pressure will only fur
ther radicalize, not moderate, Iranian behavior,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Security forces initially stood by as students laboriously broke through
the embassy’s massive main gate and
then ransacked
the offices, burning British flags and smashing pictures of Queen Elizabeth II. Only later did police officers in riot gear begin a somewhat lackadaisical effort to remove
the protesters from
the grounds, according to reports on state-supported Iranian news media and images broadcast on state television.
President Obama, speaking about
the assault during a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of
the Ne
therlands at
the White House, said he
was “deeply concerned” that
the Iranian authorities had permitted it to happen. “For rioters essentially to be able to overrun
the embassy and set it on fire is an indication that
the Iranian government is not taking its international obligations
seriously,” Mr. Obama said.
The European Union also rushed to condemn
the assault, and
the United Nations Security Council
issued a statement calling on Iran to protect foreign diplomats and embassy property.
Of
the three nations Iran’s leaders loa
the the most — Israel,
the United States and Britain — only Britain maintains an embassy in
the country, making it an easy target. But hostility to
the British taps a deep vein in
the Iranian psyche.
The United States may be
the “Great Satan” to Iran’s
theocratic rulers, but it is Britain —
the crafty old colonial power whose designs in Iran go back two centuries — that is still widely blamed for al
most every upheaval in
the country. One of
the events that helped ignite
the 1979 revolution
was Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s decision to publish an article accusing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
the revolt’s
then-exiled spiritual leader, of belonging to a family of British agents.
“
The ‘British hand’ is said to be behind every major event of
the past 150 years,” said Abbas Milani, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Stanford University. “
The Americans are seen as naïve malleable tools in
the hands of
the Brits.”
A day before
the embassy assault, Ayatollah Khamenei assailed Britain in a speech as an emblem of Western imperial arrogance, saying it “has a history of humiliating nations, destroying cultural and civilization heritage and taking control of
their resources.”
Britain’s new economic sanctions provoked special anger because
they require all contacts to be severed with
the Iranian Central Bank, a step o
ther countries, including
the Unites States, have not taken.
The United States and
the European Union also imposed new sanctions last week after
a United Nations report offered new evidence suggesting that Iran may be developing
nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.
The intensifying struggle over
Iran’s nuclear programwas visible in ano
ther aspect of Tuesday’s embassy assault:
the protesters could be heard chanting
the name of Majid Shahriari, an Iranian nuclear scientist who
was killed by mysterious assailants exactly a year ago. Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency issued a report on Tuesday accusing Israeli and British intelligence of carrying out
the assassination.
Iranian officials have
derided the latest United Nations reporton Iran’s nuclear program as “propaganda” written at
the behest of
the United States to justify airstrikes on Iran.
The attack on Tuesday began when about 50 protesters invaded
the offices in
the vast walled compound housing
the British Embassy and its manicured grounds, situated in a busy neighborhood in
the heart of Tehran, Iranian state media reported. Outside
the gates, thousands of student protesters chanted religious slogans and demanded
the expulsion of
the British ambassador. Meanwhile, 200 to 300 o
thers broke into a British diplomatic residence a few miles north of
the embassy, called Qolhak Garden.
The facility also houses a school.
Fars reported that police officers freed six British staff members who had been surrounded by
the Qolhak Garden protesters and that 12 of those protesters were later arrested.
According to Fars,
the police eventually used tear gas to disperse some protesters inside
the embassy grounds, and a number of protesters were wounded.
The agency said
the demonstration ended after Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza Radan,
the deputy police chief, warned any recalcitrant protesters
they would face a “tough police confrontation” if
they did not leave
the embassy.
Earlier, television images showed protesters, some armed with gasoline bombs, rampaging through offices strewn with papers, and at least one vehicle burning inside
the compound.
There could be no mistake about
the state’s compliance: police could be seen standing by in television footage, and in any case
the security forces have maintained strict control over all large protests in Iran ever since
the disputed presidential election of 2009.
The Iranian authorities have orchestrated similar political demonstrations against foreign embassies in
the past, intervening only after
the protest
was well under way and
the message
was clear.
It
was the most serious violence aimed at
the British Embassy in Tehran since relations were restored in 1990 after a break caused by Iranian outrage over
the 1988 publication of “
The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie,
the Indian-British novelist.
The embassy
attack came a day after Iran’s Parliament
approved a measureto expel
the British ambassador and downgrade diplomatic relations between
the two countries, in retaliation for Britain’s new economic sanctions.
