It is hard not to be impressed by the one-dimensional reasons the United States gives for its various animosities.
U.S. antagonism to Tehran began in 1979 when some revolution-minded Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy there and held 55 staff members as hostages for 444 days. Washington said the raid broke diplomatic protocol. But had not the embassy lost any claim to immunity by helping the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddegh government, and its replacement by a Shah-led dictatorship that had suppressed all opposition?
Embassy-based operatives, with advanced eavesdropping techniques, had for years been able to provide the Shah's much-hated security service, Savak, with the names of regime opponents to be rounded up, tortured and even killed. Diplomatic immunity should not mean embassy impunity.