Iran's double standard on diplomats

Published February 8, 2007 at midnight

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Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini has to be the front-runner for this year's award for keeping a straight face while dishing out high-octane hypocrisy.

Iranian diplomats have been accused of meddling in Iraq, funneling money and weapons to Shiite militias that then attack their Sunni neighbors and U.S. troops. Over the weekend, gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms and carrying Iraqi military IDs kidnapped the second secretary of the Iranian Embassy in downtown Baghdad.

Hosseini denounced this "violation of international law" and declaimed: "The Islamic Republic of Iran considers it a responsibility of U.S. forces in Iraq to protect members of the diplomatic community, including Iranian diplomats, and will hold them responsible for obtaining the release of the abducted Iranian diplomat." Gee, lawless elements take a diplomat hostage. Where has that happened before?

Last month, U.S troops raided an Iranian government office in the Kurdish town of Ibril and took into custody five Iranians, who claimed to be consular officials, on suspicion of aiding the insurgents. The Americans, Hosseini said, "should immediately release the five Iranians and pay compensation for the damage they caused to our office in Ibril." Immediate release? Compensation? Surely Hosseini knows that in 1979 his government took 52 Americans hostage, most of them accredited diplomats, and held them for 444 days. It was the most flagrant abuse of international law regarding the inviolacy of diplomats in modern times. Iran has yet to apologize let alone pay compensation.

We can only hope that sometime when he is mouthing these pieties he cracks up.

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