Surely the world has grown weary of these comedic theater performances, repeatedly acted out by the Iranian regime and imitated by its Syrian ally, of storming embassies. The matter has reached the point of requiring a truly harsh international response, so as to put a stop to such practices, which reflect complete bankruptcy, and so as for those two countries to refrain from repeatedly resorting to angry mobs, driving them to violate diplomatic immunity and international conventions with countries that have taken political stances that displease Tehran and Damascus. Moreover, one cannot accept the notion that Iranian security forces, which “excelled” at repressing protesting opposition members, chasing them into homes, mosques and hospitals, could not prevent “spontaneous” protesters from storming the British embassy, knowing that the latter were members of the Basij militia, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran), who only move by a direct signal from the same security services that claim to try to stop them, and that Iranian state television was broadcasting the storming process live. Before the British embassy, it had been proven with tangible evidence that Iran was implicated in the attempted assassination of the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, and before that the assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Pakistan, in addition to dozens of attacks against Saudi diplomats in different parts of the world, where the evidence would always point to an Iranian hand hiding behind the incident. Only a few weeks ago, Qatar and Bahrain arrested a Bahraini group trained by Iran to attack diplomatic locations and carry out assassinations in Manama. In Damascus, angry mobs also attacked Arab and Western embassies, among them those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and the United States, also with the clear incitement of security services, who did not do what they were supposed to do to protect diplomatic missions, knowing that Iranian and Syrian embassies have never been subject to any attacks of any kind in any of the world's capitals – except for demonstrations in protest against repression, which represent a natural right to express one's opinion without violence, organized by Syrian and Iranian citizens protesting against the regimes of their home countries. Perhaps the patience, laxity and overlooking displayed by the Arabs and the international community when it comes to these violations has encouraged Damascus and Tehran to excessively indulge in them, although what is required is to show some firmness to make the two regimes understand that finding it easy to attack diplomats has a price and consequences, just like the repression they are exercising against their citizens. And just as the Arab League regained its self-confidence and its role, and decided to impose economic sanctions on Damascus for refusing to meet the demands of putting a stop to the killing, pulling the army out of the streets, and starting a dialogue with the opposition. And although the matter has not reached the extent of collectively recalling ambassadors or expelling Syrian ambassadors, the countries of the world can, if possible through the Security Council, take additional punitive measures against Tehran to deter it from continuing to make light of international conventions – measures which would include isolating it diplomatically by recalling ambassadors to Iran and expelling Iranian diplomats, despite the fact that most countries consider themselves to be above such vengeful practices. And if some have considered the storming of the British embassy to have come in response to the new sanctions ratified by the European Union and the United States within the framework of a unified Western stance on Iran's refusal to cooperate on its nuclear issue, then this means that these sanctions have begun to bear fruit and to unnerve the Iranian regime, and that ratifying more of them could drive it to submit to international consensus, open its nuclear facilities to effective monitoring, and stop behaving like a rogue state.
