The attack on the Saudi mission in Tehran earlier this week is wholly unacceptable and the responsibility for ensuring that no such incident recurs lies entirely in the hands of the Iranian government. One of the very reasons that embassies and other diplomatic missions exist is to allow communication between the host nation and that operating the embassy, and it is mandatory that the host make all possible efforts to protect foreign embassies. Iran, of course, is one of the few countries to have ever sanctioned the takeover of an embassy on its territory. That was back in 1979 when so-called students stormed the US Embassy and took some 66 Americans hostage, holding 52 of them for 444 days. With such a history, the stakes of the illegal behavior displayed recently in Tehran are that much higher. The incident puts the two countries even more on edge. Most troubling are accounts of witnesses who said that Iranian security forces stood by idly as the observed protesters hurled stones at the Saudi Embassy, an act of public protest that has been denied all other groups, no matter their focus. Only demonstrations against Saudi Arabia have been allowed to go forward in Tehran. The repercussions of the incident are still unclear, and a Saudi spokesperson has said the government is still studying the appropriate reactions. He made clear that the Saudi government is extremely displeased with the incident in Tehran, as well as another one which occurred a month earlier when some 700 demonstrators hurled stones at the Saudi Consulate in the town of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. Given the regional influence of both Saudi Arabia and Iran, it is unacceptable that these two neighbors do not afford one another the respect mandated by international law. Iran must protect the Saudi Embassy just as it protects the other embassies it hosts. There is no alternative. __
