The Belmont Club: A Downpayment on 1979
According to the Washington Post, the US raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil, northern Iraq, hours after President Bush announced he would crack down on the Islamic Republic’s role in Iraqi violence. Iran has protested. US forces were said to have seized computers, documents and detained five persons.
Much as I despise Iran, this bothers me. If consulates have the same level of protection as embassies (that is, they are considered to be the territory of the state they represent) then we have just surrendered the moral and legal high ground over Iran’s 1979 invasion of our embassy.
I confess I don’t understand the status of consulates, but I’ll look into it.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
As I understand it, by treaty, consulates are supposed to be inviolable, especially their records. I think the US withdrew from the treaty after a kerfuffle about notifying diplomats when foreign nationals are arrested, specifically, a Mexican national accused of murder in Texas.
This event happened in Iraq, not Texas, and I’m not sure what Iraq’s treaty status is, but under the UN charter, all states have the right to defend themselves. Consulates are not the territory of the foreign state, only embassies, so if a host nation believes its sovereignty is being undermined by consulate activity, it’s not committing an act of war by entering a consulate, as would be the case with an embassy.
The big question is what was the Iraqi government’s role in the raid.
Since Iran has undertaken innumerable acts of war against us, since and including the 1979 invasion of our embassy, I think we are wholely justified in our action here. And if US troops began prosecuting these types of actions on the OTHER side of the Iraq-Iran border, ie in Iranian territory, preferably Tehran, I would be more than pleased.