Er... You seem to studiously avoid the fact that this Iran strike is a response to a brazen attack on Iranian consulate in Damascus, making a pipifax of Geneva conventions. If you throw that in, the equation changes completely and things become less worrying - unless Israel chooses to escalate and try to draw the US in, at all cost.
"unless Israel chooses to escalate and try to draw the US" - which is something that definitely can't be ruled out. Therefore, things don't become less worrying.
Not really, the building was an annex to the consulate. In any event, the seven IRCG officers were reportedly meeting with Hamas to review strategy. And, not surprisingly, the lead general doubled as the only non-Lebanese member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council.
And, to add to it all, Iran claimed in its martyr obituary that this general was intimately involved in planning the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation.
So even if the specific site were protected, these facts would appear to forfeit that protection just as surely as fighters shooting from a mosque or hospital.
And recall that it was Ayatollah Khomeini who made Iran an enemy of Israel and made its eradication a holy goal of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Before then, relations had been cordial. So if you really are looking for root causes, consider that one as conclusive.
That’s the question, isn’t it. The attack would be equivalent to attacking an enemy’s control center in its own territory and that would be permitted under international law.
If you read the Vienna Convention, it is clear that Iran’s abusive use of its facilities for war making purposes was simply beyond the contemplation of the drafters.
See below comment. All countries use their embassies to do all kind of things. That’s rules if the game. Just reverse the situation - imagine Iranians blow up an Israeli consulate with some mossad officers in it
First, it doesn’t seem to be a consulate that was struck but an adjacent office building. Why everyone seems to be having troubling saying definitively what it is remains a mystery to me, but it certainly is not the Iranian embassy or the consulate. Second, there is a great difference between using a diplomatic outpost for spying purposes - that is, as you suggest, an accepted practice and when convenient to the host country the accepted response is to expel such persons as “persona non grata” under the Vienna Convention - and actively planning military operations against a country. In any case, the targeted IRGC officers in Damascus cannot remotely be described as spies and are not the equivalent of Mossad, CIA or anything else. Third, however you view this particular operation, it is very different in kind from the Iranian operation that destroyed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29.
So, for these reasons, your thought experiment would not appear to shed any light on this episode.
1. Afaik the building is on the plot belonging to Iran
2. You put a fine point there, but it's not realistic or real - you cannot know whether the spies in the embassy are from the spy department, or from the army department. Actually, usually they are both, army being under the cover of the army attache.
These were IRGC officers, not army attaches or anything remotely similar, so none had the benefit of diplomatic immunity. The evidence was that they were involved with Hezbollah plotting actively, using the building for that meeting. And since Iran has placed itself in a state of war against Israel for years, its cut-outs of Hezbollah and Hamas fool no one, it could be argued that to the extent it was using the building in question for military purposes, then that building has forfeited its protected status. It is evident that the drafters of the Vienna Convention never anticipated this type of abusive use. The published reports indicate that the building at issue was used exclusively by the IRGC and so cannot be said to advance the diplomatic purposes of the Iranian mission. In contrast, the Iranian destruction of the Israeli embassy was done, according to Argentina’s investigation, as a warning to Argentina and had nothing to do with Israel per se - and that is as clear a violation of the Vienna Convention as one can conceive. If you cannot see a difference, I suspect most others can.
Potential re-escalation between Israel and Iran is in Bibi's hands. But it's the Biden administration who made it clear they can't afford it - not at this inconvenient time, before the election. It's hard not to ask, what is being exchanged there, to satisfy both of those parties.
PS- "escalate to de-escalate" is shaky theory on the best of days. It has worked only a fraction of the time, and rarely in just one cycle of tit for tat. The supposedly weaker party can and often does simply refuse to acknowledge the stronger party. The number of repetitions is unpredictable.
Future oil prices - medium term wildcard, at the margin, is Chinese auto manufacturing in the middle of the typical ramp-up curve. The world is set for the return of the $10000 car? There would be a period of time where it won't be all NEV everywhere
Prof. Tooze’s analysis of the Iranian attack on Israel is rather superficial and oddly downplays the fire with which Iran is playing. Launching some 350 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, all told carrying an estimated 60 tons of explosives is not performative nor could Iran have had any confidence that Israel and its allies defense would have been so successful. Aside from injuring an 8 year old Bedouin child and making a small hole (already repaired) at one military base, the attack was such a humiliating failure that Iranian TV was showing film of fires from either Texas or Chile (the jury is still out) as proof of its “devastating” attack.
To write that Jordan and Saudi Arabia were “roped in” to help defend against the attack shows a lack of attention to regional dynamics since President Obama signed the JCPOA or more recently Iran’s attempt to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom.
Khameini has managed to accomplish something very similar to Putin. His aggressive instincts have resulted in the unveiling of a new alliance among the U.S., Israel and the Sunni states against Iran, much as Putin’s aggression has thrown Sweden and Finland squarely into NATO’s camp.
If Prof. Tooze (and anyone else) is interested in a rather sober analysis of Iran’s miscalculation and Israel’s potential responses, he would do well to listen to todays podcast interview of Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal on “Call Me Back with Dan Senor”. Or Prof. Tooze can stick to his expertise of economics and stop dabbling in foreign policy matters as to which he appears to confuse partial with complete information.
I am amused that Brooks thinks that Russia "pays for" its war with revenues from oil sales. This can only be true to the extent that it must pay for materials it is unable to produce at home.
And what, exactly, are those materials? Brooks doesn't say. Maybe he doesn't understand this at all.
Er... You seem to studiously avoid the fact that this Iran strike is a response to a brazen attack on Iranian consulate in Damascus, making a pipifax of Geneva conventions. If you throw that in, the equation changes completely and things become less worrying - unless Israel chooses to escalate and try to draw the US in, at all cost.
"unless Israel chooses to escalate and try to draw the US" - which is something that definitely can't be ruled out. Therefore, things don't become less worrying.
Not really, the building was an annex to the consulate. In any event, the seven IRCG officers were reportedly meeting with Hamas to review strategy. And, not surprisingly, the lead general doubled as the only non-Lebanese member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council.
And, to add to it all, Iran claimed in its martyr obituary that this general was intimately involved in planning the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation.
So even if the specific site were protected, these facts would appear to forfeit that protection just as surely as fighters shooting from a mosque or hospital.
And recall that it was Ayatollah Khomeini who made Iran an enemy of Israel and made its eradication a holy goal of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Before then, relations had been cordial. So if you really are looking for root causes, consider that one as conclusive.
None of which obviates the Vienna convention.
That’s the question, isn’t it. The attack would be equivalent to attacking an enemy’s control center in its own territory and that would be permitted under international law.
If you read the Vienna Convention, it is clear that Iran’s abusive use of its facilities for war making purposes was simply beyond the contemplation of the drafters.
See below comment. All countries use their embassies to do all kind of things. That’s rules if the game. Just reverse the situation - imagine Iranians blow up an Israeli consulate with some mossad officers in it
First, it doesn’t seem to be a consulate that was struck but an adjacent office building. Why everyone seems to be having troubling saying definitively what it is remains a mystery to me, but it certainly is not the Iranian embassy or the consulate. Second, there is a great difference between using a diplomatic outpost for spying purposes - that is, as you suggest, an accepted practice and when convenient to the host country the accepted response is to expel such persons as “persona non grata” under the Vienna Convention - and actively planning military operations against a country. In any case, the targeted IRGC officers in Damascus cannot remotely be described as spies and are not the equivalent of Mossad, CIA or anything else. Third, however you view this particular operation, it is very different in kind from the Iranian operation that destroyed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29.
So, for these reasons, your thought experiment would not appear to shed any light on this episode.
1. Afaik the building is on the plot belonging to Iran
2. You put a fine point there, but it's not realistic or real - you cannot know whether the spies in the embassy are from the spy department, or from the army department. Actually, usually they are both, army being under the cover of the army attache.
3. I do not see any difference to 1992, sorry.
These were IRGC officers, not army attaches or anything remotely similar, so none had the benefit of diplomatic immunity. The evidence was that they were involved with Hezbollah plotting actively, using the building for that meeting. And since Iran has placed itself in a state of war against Israel for years, its cut-outs of Hezbollah and Hamas fool no one, it could be argued that to the extent it was using the building in question for military purposes, then that building has forfeited its protected status. It is evident that the drafters of the Vienna Convention never anticipated this type of abusive use. The published reports indicate that the building at issue was used exclusively by the IRGC and so cannot be said to advance the diplomatic purposes of the Iranian mission. In contrast, the Iranian destruction of the Israeli embassy was done, according to Argentina’s investigation, as a warning to Argentina and had nothing to do with Israel per se - and that is as clear a violation of the Vienna Convention as one can conceive. If you cannot see a difference, I suspect most others can.
Potential re-escalation between Israel and Iran is in Bibi's hands. But it's the Biden administration who made it clear they can't afford it - not at this inconvenient time, before the election. It's hard not to ask, what is being exchanged there, to satisfy both of those parties.
PS- "escalate to de-escalate" is shaky theory on the best of days. It has worked only a fraction of the time, and rarely in just one cycle of tit for tat. The supposedly weaker party can and often does simply refuse to acknowledge the stronger party. The number of repetitions is unpredictable.
Future oil prices - medium term wildcard, at the margin, is Chinese auto manufacturing in the middle of the typical ramp-up curve. The world is set for the return of the $10000 car? There would be a period of time where it won't be all NEV everywhere
Prof. Tooze’s analysis of the Iranian attack on Israel is rather superficial and oddly downplays the fire with which Iran is playing. Launching some 350 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, all told carrying an estimated 60 tons of explosives is not performative nor could Iran have had any confidence that Israel and its allies defense would have been so successful. Aside from injuring an 8 year old Bedouin child and making a small hole (already repaired) at one military base, the attack was such a humiliating failure that Iranian TV was showing film of fires from either Texas or Chile (the jury is still out) as proof of its “devastating” attack.
To write that Jordan and Saudi Arabia were “roped in” to help defend against the attack shows a lack of attention to regional dynamics since President Obama signed the JCPOA or more recently Iran’s attempt to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom.
Khameini has managed to accomplish something very similar to Putin. His aggressive instincts have resulted in the unveiling of a new alliance among the U.S., Israel and the Sunni states against Iran, much as Putin’s aggression has thrown Sweden and Finland squarely into NATO’s camp.
If Prof. Tooze (and anyone else) is interested in a rather sober analysis of Iran’s miscalculation and Israel’s potential responses, he would do well to listen to todays podcast interview of Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal on “Call Me Back with Dan Senor”. Or Prof. Tooze can stick to his expertise of economics and stop dabbling in foreign policy matters as to which he appears to confuse partial with complete information.
Or maybe he knows more than your cherry-picking of sources implies.
He might, but it’s certainly not apparent from his writings. It’s possible that he’s the one doing the cherry-picking.
“The only thing standing between the Gazan people and a ceasefire is Hamas.” - Anthony Blinken. U.S. Secy. of State, this morning https://jewdicious.substack.com/p/passover-poland-april-19-1943
I am amused that Brooks thinks that Russia "pays for" its war with revenues from oil sales. This can only be true to the extent that it must pay for materials it is unable to produce at home.
And what, exactly, are those materials? Brooks doesn't say. Maybe he doesn't understand this at all.