Iran’s grave miscalculations in attacking Saudi Embassy

January 2016

The consequences of the attack staged against the Saudi Embassy in Tehran were very quick and heavy, followed by a long a list of reactions from Iranian regime’s officials top to bottom. These reactions, were a mixture of awe, outright fear and expressing how terrified they were, and as always, deceitful remarks all resembling the regime’s all-out regret for such actions.

While 4 countries have severed all relations with Iran, one neighboring country has downgraded diplomatic ties and the UN Security Council and many governments across the globe have condemned this attack. As a result, a serious crises in such proportions has left the entire regime in shock. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made his first appearance after the incident on Monday, January 4 to deliver a speech for all Friday prayer imams across the country. However, he dared not to mention a single word about this matter, not even a notion or indirect reference. This truly depicts Khamenei’s weak position in this regard.

Iranian regime officials, along with state-run media have in one way or another expressed their regret in this regard. Asefi, a senior Iranian foreign ministry figure and former spokesman said in utter disbelief: “No one predicted they would severe all relations in such a short timing… we learned after the British case (reference to hardliners storming the British Embassy in Tehran back in 2011), after which all our own state officials, from top to bottom, came out denouncing and condemning that attack. A wise man doesn’t make the same mistake twice. One makes a mistake once, what was this second mistake for?”

One can predict that Asefi and other senior regime officials were caught off guard from such a Saudi reaction, thus it becomes crystal clear how they are now left in all-out shock when four countries took measures similar to the Saudis along with a wave of condemnations, especially by the UN Security Council that also enjoyed the vote of Russia! Ridiculous remarks deceptively made in this regard by the Iranian regime’s experts and media outlets are other signs of how the entire regime truly regrets the attacks against the Saudi diplomatic missions.

Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, described the “aggression” against Saudi diplomatic missions as “suspicious” and emphasized on the “determination of the country’s administrative bodies to seek a rapid judicial follow up to this matter and punish the elements behind this incident.”

“This move against Saudi Arabia could have been planned by infiltrating elements,” said the regime’s Justice Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi.

Mullah Nosser Makarem Shirazi, a senior official in the Iranian regime said the attack against the Saudi Embassy could have been carried out by two groups.

“Those supporting the state that are now fed up about the Saudis’ policies and measures, or “infiltrating elements” that are seeking to “increase enmity between Shiites and Sunnis,” he said.

“These measures will cost Islam and the state,” he added, going on to suggest, “Friends should attempt to control their nerves, not provide any excuses to the enemy and strongly block all infiltrators.”

On the other hand, this crisis has ruined all the claims made by the Rafsanjani and his followers, and the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. This faction claims their main achievement is the signing of the nuclear pact with the West and that the entire world came to understand Iran is now acting based on logic and engagement; the remarks of Iran’s First Vice President Es’hagh Jahangiri is quite vivid in this regard when he said, “In this country there can’t be one person claiming to seek engagement with the entire globe, and another going and taking over an embassy.”

Therefore, the attack against the Saudi Embassy proved to all that these are the same old, same old individuals who climbed over the U.S. Embassy wall back in 1979; the same who raided the Saudi Embassy once before back in 1987, killing the Saudi charge d’affaires by throwing him off the building; the same who have staged dozens of such raids against embassies and diplomats, along with other terrorist attacks in their report card, and that absolutely nothing has changed in this regime.

However, the response shown by Saudi Arabia to Iran’s regrets has been clear and very firm.

“My country is not seeking an apology from Iran. In fact, we are demanding a commitment to international conventions and not meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, not just in word, but in practice,” said Saudi Ambassador to the UN Abdallah al-Mouallimi.

“Iran must clarify the question that is it a government, or the element behind exporting revolution and warmongering,” said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in very short and specific remarks. “We will not allow Iran to make the region unsafe,” he added.

The result is that the attack on the Saudi Embassy and its consequences depicts to all the truth of the changing balance of power in the region. This is the very miscalculation Iran committed, thinking we are still living back in the early 1980s when no one would say a word after this regime would storm an embassy.

Therefore, Iran will either learn to no longer make such mistakes and end its aggression against other countries, which of course it never can call it quits and the very day this regime places a lid on terrorist attacks and exporting terrorism, it has signed its own death certificate.

Or it will continue with the same old tactics and actually pay the increasing price of all these measures that are becoming heavier each day. Like it or not, this path will ultimately lead to this regime’s overthrow.