There are three things that Iran hates the most, Israel, the US and the British. Israel and the US don’t have an embassy in Iran but the British do and now they are getting their people out. Memories still linger about what happened when students stormed the American embassy in 1979 and took 52 hostages that were held for 444 days.
They still see America as the “Great Satan” but believe the British have had a hand every major upheaval in their country over the past 150 years. Ayatollah Khamenei once said that Britain is the epitome of Western imperial arrogance saying it “has a history of humiliating nations, destroying cultural and civilization heritage and taking control of their resources.”
So what’s their side of the story, why are they so angry with Britain? Majid Shahriari was an Iranian nuclear scientist who was mysteriously killed a year ago and they believe that Israel and British intelligence carried out the assassination. They are also angry about the UN report on their nuclear program and believe it was written under pressure from America to justify airstrikes on Iran.
They say they did everything they could to protect the British at the embassy, that police officers freed six British staff members who had been surrounded by the Qolhak Garden protesters and that 12 of those protesters were later arrested. Police eventually used tear gas to disperse some protesters inside the embassy grounds, and a number of protesters were wounded.
But their main complaint is Britain’s new economic sanctions that will undoubtedly hurt. The embassy attack followed legislation passed by Iran’s Parliament to expel the British ambassador and downgrade diplomatic relations between the two countries.
So are we (the west) gearing up for a war with Iran?
No comments:
Post a Comment