What the Iranian Government Could Use Now

A U.S. embassy to sic 'students' on, to distract the attention of Iranian anti-government protesters. If only the ayatollahs didn't shoot their bolt with that strategy 30 years ago. Here are a few tweets from Iranian protesters, courtesy of Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic blog (the photo above is from his blog as well):

- reports of large pro-Gov Baseej militia in front of UK embassy Tehran

- Khamenei indicate in last Friday prayers that Gov relationship with UK will become bad

- we expect that Gov will arrange for demo outside UK embassy to become serious - maybe cut diplomatic ties with UK

- Gov demos outside UK embassy in Tehran today shouting 'death to England' - 'death to BBC'

"Death to England"? "Death to the BBC"? What red-blooded Iranian Islamic revolutionary can get excited about that? Another Iranian Twitterer notes,

- Today is aniversary of raiding of USA embassy in Tehran 1979 - #Iranelection - today Gov planning anti UK demo outside UK embassy!!!!

Somehow, I doubt that stirring up the pot with the U.K. is going to help the Iranian establishment much. At this late date, using the U.K. to stir up revolutionary, anti-Western, or anti-imperialist sentiment sounds as archaic as cries of "Perfidious Albion" -- probably, even to Iranians, who seem especially sensitive about past perceived slights to their national honor. In any case, the U.K. has already started to evacuate the families of its diplomats. What happens if it evacuates its embassy too? What's Khamenei going to do, have his 'students' lay siege to the Canadian embassy? I doubt even the most zealous Islamic revolutionary would get excited about that. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad would be better off hoping that the Stratfor's George Friedman is right, and that the anti-government protesters represent only a vocal minority, with the current Iranian establishment enjoying broader popular support. Time will tell, I guess.

Talking Turki, Part II

In today's Financial Times, letter writer Sue Kelly responds to Turki al-Faisal's op/ed column of last week:

Sir, So the patience of Saudi Arabia is running out (Comment, January 23). So also is the patience of the average US citizen, but not in the way Turki al-Faisal might think.

[...]

Many US citizens are tired of the double talk of people like Prince Turki. He is old enough and educated enough to know better than to make such statements.

If Saudi Arabia truly wants peace, enough to return the violence genie to its bottle, it will stop its own citizens from funding war and work with the Palestinians to stop Hamas's firing of rockets at Israel, and with the Israelis to end their building new settlements in the West Bank.

The Saudis owe the Arab world nothing less than the strongest effort to build the will of all Arabs forward towards peace and away from the constant aggrievement over the past. It is clear from Prince Turki's article that he has not been able to do this for himself, let alone be able to influence others.

Thinking about this some more, I'm struck by the way al-Faisal brought up the threat of jihad in his FT column, given the carnage caused by Saudi jihadis in the U.S. on 9/11, in Iraq over the last several years, and (to a far lesser extent) even within Saudi Arabia itself. If he weren't a former longtime diplomat, I'd chalk it up to tactlessness, or tone deafness, but given his background, he must realize how provocative this is.

Then there's that letter al-Faisal claims was sent to the Saudi government by the president of Iran. Surely, he must wonder what motives Ahmadinejad has, beyond his stated concern for the plight of the Palestinians (especially given the flattery the Shiite Ahmadinejad included about Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia being the leader of all Muslim nations)?