State-sponsored terror attacks at foreign embassies not to boost Iran's influence
Time to drop Tehran's mask
ANALYTICS 03 February 2023 - 14:45
Fuad Shahbazov |
The Azerbaijan–Iran confrontation has skyrocketed with the recent attack at the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran that killed security chief Orkhan Asgarov and injured two other service members. While the incident market was the highest escalation point between Baku and Tehran, it repeatedly revealed the destructive elements of Iran's foreign policy agenda and proxy war against neighbouring states.
Even though Tehran counted on intimidating Azerbaijan due to its deepening engagement with Israel and Türkiye, the terrorist attack backfired. As a result, Baku temporarily shut down the embassy in Tehran for an uncertain period stating that a transparent investigation must be provided shortly. The attack at the foreign embassy caused worldwide condemnation by leading states and international organisations, forcing Tehran to investigate and punish perpetrators properly.
Indeed, the unprovoked attack at the embassy and the brutal assassination of a staff member ignited the situation and raised public discontent in Azerbaijan against Iran. However, in fact, Tehran has gradually been preparing for this terrorist attack, as its media outlets recently launched a mass anti-Azerbaijani and anti-Israeli blackmailing campaign threatening to destroy both states. The short video prepared by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) affiliated media was shown a few days after the IRGC held exercises near Iran's 700-kilometre border with Azerbaijan.
The threat was openly made for the first time in an Iranian governmental channel Sahar in a controversial manner as the channel’s main language/audience is Iranian Azerbaijanis. Given the grave consequences of Iran's policy toward ethnic minorities in the country, particularly in light of recent deadly mass riots, Tehran's manners and attitudes toward Baku should not come as a surprise.
Moreover, the terror attack at the embassy repeatedly exposed the radical Islamist regime's destructive nature and highlighted its dark past, when the regime's adherents, under the guise of "freedom and justice", first stormed the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 66 foreign diplomats as hostages for a long period using them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the US. The previous "success" of the foreign embassy's attack provoked further brutal attacks on other foreign embassies and consulates based on Iranian soil.
Despite the fact that the Iranian authorities are obliged to ensure the safety of embassies and diplomatic staff, Tehran seemed not bothered to comply with the requirements of Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) but instead exploited this strategy to intimidate/coerce foreign countries in order to gain additional leverage and boost soft power strategy, albeit unsuccessfully.
As such, in 2009 the Pakistani embassy in Tehran was attacked by a group of radicals who stoned the building and chanted anti-Pakistani slogans. The local police restored the order shortly, only to witness a failed assassination attempt on the Pakistani ambassador to Iran in 2010.
Hence, the regime’s misconduct with the regulations of international law continued in 2011 with the attack on the British embassy when a group of radicals surrounded the building and demanded the “ambassador to be sent home immediately”. Undoubtedly, the action was a retaliation form of the Islamist regime to the imposed additional sanctions. In this vein, the protesters’ statement that “our actions are a spontaneous reaction of revolutionary students and were not ordered by any state organ" caused only laughter and condemnation of the international community and the eventual suspension of the embassy's work until 2015.
Shortly after the British embassy attack, the new escalation emerged when another group of young radicals attacked and ransacked the embassy of Saudi Arabia and the consulate building in Mashhad city simultaneously in 2016 as a reaction to the executed Shi’a cleric Sheikh Nimr-al Nimr by the Saudi authorities. Unsurprisingly, again the state-sponsored mob attack at the foreign embassy and consulate did not increase the leverage of Iran over the region but inflamed anti-Iranian rhetoric worldwide and suspended Saudi–Iran diplomatic relations.
The terrorist attack at the embassy of Azerbaijan in 2023 signalled that official Tehran still instrumentalises its radical ideology to maintain influence, even limited, over its immediate neighbourhood referring to national interests and security concerns. However, with the shifting regional security dynamics, geopolitical realities, and new stakeholders, Iran's provocative actions to coerce Azerbaijan and its cooperation format with Israel and Türkiye will unlikely yield any positive results. On the contrary, Iran may soon witness a dramatic surge of anti-Iranian sentiments in Shi'a-majority Azerbaijan.
Caliber.Az
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