Iranian protesters storm UK embassy

[Ibn_Warraq]

@Rune

In more sensible times it would have been clear Casus belli of course. In any case, the Big Satan & Little Satan are already taken, so I wonder what they’re going to call the Brits. “The Satan of Average Size”?

Iranians have hated the British far longer than they’ve hated either the Americans or the Jews.

[Jackmannii]

The A.P. is calling the embassy stormers “hard-line Iranian students”.

Guess that rules out sociology majors.

@marshmallow

Satan’s Little Helper.

Isn’t that the habanero mix they sell in boxes to mix with your hamburger meat?

[BrainGlutton]

@Simplicio

Defenestrations of Prague

Band name!

[BrainGlutton]

@Ibn_Warraq

Iranians have hated the British far longer than they’ve hated either the Americans or the Jews.

How do they feel about the Russians?

[MPB_in_Salt_Lake]

@YourAdHere

The defenestration of Prague, which started the 30 years war in 1618.

They have a little draught beer garden right in the courtyard adjacent to where the original DoP took place, where you can get a (plastic) cup of Staropramen for under a buck ($1.00)

If they scheduled hourly defenestrations for the tourists, I am sure they could charge at least $2 per brew, especially if they featured American Congressional week once in a while…

[carnivorousplant]

@RandMcnally

Question: seeing as how British embassy grounds are considered British territory, would it have been legal for the guards to use for, deadly or otherwise, to keep the protesters out?

I got called on that in a post last month, and surely enough, embassies are not foreign soil.

Oops. At least Filbert was polite.

[Little_Nemo]

@Simplicio

There were two actually (hence the joke). The first one in 1418 started the Hussite Wars.

Maybe three. Jan Masaryk’s death was officially ruled a suicide but many people believe he was pushed out a window in 1948.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Jackmannii

The A.P. is calling the embassy stormers “hard-line Iranian students”.

The hostage-takers who led the invasion of the American embassy were generally referred to as “students,” also. My guess is that there has been little actual investigation by the US press as to where they are enrolled and what they study.

[Duckster]

I wonder how much of this is somehow tied to the mystery blast near an Iranian nuclear facility, an earlier mystery blast at an Iranian military installation, and Israel’s potential for a preemptive strike?

Seems like the rhetoric is ratcheting up all around. Haven’t we seen this pattern before?

[BrainGlutton]

@Tom_Tildrum

The hostage-takers who led the invasion of the American embassy were generally referred to as “students,” also. My guess is that there has been little actual investigation by the US press as to where they are enrolled and what they study.

That’s because the U.S. press includes a lot of former “students.”

[Mighty_Mouse]

@BrainGlutton

That’s because the U.S. press includes a lot of former “students.”

In Pakistan in the mid 1980s when I was a college student, there were a number of people generously termed “professional students” who hung about the universities, with an extremely tenuous connection to any academic work, but whose main function was political agitation in the universities, where such activities were allowed much more leeway than in the general population by the military dictatorship then in power. In fact some of the Islamic fundamentalists and Pashtun (big overlap in membership) groups seem to have the backing of the administration to beat down any “inconvenient” groups like the Liberals, Socialists or some of the other communal-oriented groups (Sindhis, Mohajirs, etc).

I would be willing to bet that what is going on in Iran is quite similar.

Though…

My wife was in Tiananmen Square in 1989 (on June 4 even) and though they are generally referred to as “students” neither my wife, not many of the people she was with at the time were currently students. But they were recent graduates. Basically that was a movement of well educated young people.

And of course the word “taliban” means students.

[BrainGlutton]

Heard on NPR this morning, the British Foreign Minister has given all Iranian diplomatic personnel 48 hours to leave the UK.

He insists this does not constitute the UK breaking off diplomatic relations with Iran, but only reducing diplomatic relations to “their lowest possible level.”

[Tom_Tildrum]

@BrainGlutton

…but only reducing diplomatic relations to “their lowest possible level.”

I.e., zero.

[BrainGlutton]

This Al Jazeera commentator says there’s more than meets the eye:

Predictably, most commentaries have linked the attack to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report, as well as the UK government’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran’s banking system. Although of some merit, these analyses fail to capture the whole picture by not allowing for domestic factors, which are clearly at play. It makes more sense if one tries to understand the domestic consumption of the attack within the context of an ongoing power rivalry between the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad.

At a time when the regime’s inability to stop covert actions has reduced the public fear of security forces, Tuesday’s event is being broadcasted as a “show of strength” by the state media, hoping that it will discourage the Green Movement activists from carrying on with their planned anti-government protests during the holy month of Muharram. It may also temporarily help the regime to divert attention from the ongoing shadow intelligence war evident in the fact that yesterday’s explosion at an IRGC (Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution) base in Esfahan went largely unnoticed. More importantly, it is likely that Khamenei sanctioned the operation so to thwart the president’s effort to begin negotiations with the P5+1 Group (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). In an interview with Iran’s Jam-e Jam channel on Nov 26, Ahmadinejad had admitted the crippling effects of sanctions on Iran’s economy and talked of his willingness to address the international community concerns over Tehran’s nuclear program. Preferring isolation to engagement and believing that a crisis situation serves his political interest better, however, Khamenei is hopeful that yesterday incident will put negotiation off the table for an extended period of time.

Yet, the most interesting aspect of yesterday’s event is the key role played by the Student Basij Organisation (SBO) in carrying out the attack, which in turn implies that Ahmadinejad has lost a valuable political constituency in his fight against Khamenei.