Diplomacy was never intended to become a sanctuary for terrorism, nor was diplomatic immunity designed to shield those who threaten the security of nations. Yet for nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic in Iran has stood accused of exploiting the privileges of international diplomacy while pursuing an absurd ideology rooted in hostility toward the United States, Israel, and the Western democratic order.
To understand how embassies and consulates allegedly became instruments of intelligence gathering, intimidation, and terrorist operations, one must return to the ideological origins of the 1979 Khomeinist revolt, examine the forces that brought Khomeini to power, and confront a question that Western governments have repeatedly failed to resolve: Where does legitimate diplomacy end, and the machinery of state-sponsored terrorism begin?
When Islamic terrorists such as Nehzat-e Azadi (Freedom Movement of Iran), Fada’iyan-e Islam (Devotees of Islam), Motalefeh-e Eslami (Islamic Coalition), the seven Shiite groups (including Badr, Falah, Khalq, Mansouroun, Ommat-e Vahedeh, Movahedin, and Falaq), Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), Hezb-e Melal (Party of Nations), and others, or left-wing Marxist-Leninist terrorists — such as Peykar, Arman-e Khalq, Palestine, Setareh-ye Sorkh (Red Star), the Tudeh Party of Iran (an Iranian Marxist–Leninist political party with close ideological and political ties to the Soviet Union), the Revolutionary Communists, and others — lined up behind Khomeini, a cancerous tumor emerged in the Middle East, heralding bitter times ahead. With their dark records and a record of failure, their work has always consisted of sabotage, terrorist activities, and mercenary service. Khomeini himself was fully aware of all these crimes. Even the Qom Seminary issued statements and declarations in support of the detested Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorists.
Today, the bitter irony of our times is that the remnants and corpses of these murderous, corrupt, repressive, bomb-planting, bank-robbing, and highway-robbing groups have suddenly become human rights activists, advocates for justice, champions of freedom, and so on (for example, a lawsuit filed against the Honorable Parviz Sabeti, a distinguished Iranian patriot and former senior SAVAK official).
They jump up and down in front of television cameras and, in parallel with the regime’s propaganda machine, take positions against nationalist, patriotic, and Iran-loving figures such as former SAVAK officials, resorting to hollow words and vindictiveness. The shah’s opposition, as a whole, consisted of anti-American and anti-Israeli individuals. Interestingly, these Marxist-Leninists and Islamists did not emigrate to communist or Islamic countries; instead, they headed for the monarchies and democratic countries of Europe and the United States.
And those who formed the provisional government took power from Shapour Bakhtiar — a follower of Mossadegh who, like that very same demagogic prime minister, was an opportunistic, power-hungry charlatan — and the transfer of power took place. Khomeini’s prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, was himself a man who epitomized hypocrisy, fraud, deceit, forgery, and the fabrication of rumors.
All these notorious followers of Mossadegh — who, of course, have not reproduced or expanded their ranks today and have lost the battle in the arena of public discourse — became the architects of the terrorist organization known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The word “Iran” is entirely absent from its name. Today, these very individuals, who once carried rifles on their shoulders and proclaimed the ideals of the people while keeping their hands in the people’s pockets, robbed banks and committed armed robberies before 1979. Today, they also file lawsuits in American courts to engage in blackmail and extortion. They carry out various projects against Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in support of the Tehran regime and call it justice, when in reality it is charlatanism.
The West failed to recognize this festering abscess and failed to see the metastasis of these cancerous tumors. Subsequently, the foreign policies of the Iranian regime — the Islamic Caliphate of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), or the religious despotism of the Shiite mullahs — were shaped by hostility toward the United States and Israel and the defense of terrorism. Gradually, following the death of the first caliph, Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps established a new branch known as the Quds Force, and Islamic terrorism expanded across the Islamic Republic’s Shiite Crescent. Over time, the IRGC, the Quds Force, and the IRGC Intelligence Organization took control of all the Iranian regime’s embassies and consulates abroad and operated under diplomatic cover.
Yet one may ask: After nearly half a century, why have countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom not moved to shut down the Islamic Republic’s consulates or embassies? And why have European countries and others failed to do the same? This crucial question remains unanswered, even though the world’s intelligence agencies — including Mossad, the CIA, MI6, BND, CSIS, ASIS, CSE, ASD, AIVD, AISE, MIVD, PET, and PST — know that all the Islamic Republic’s embassies and consulates are hubs and centers of terrorism, overseeing or carrying out terrorist operations worldwide. It is from these very locations that terrorist activities are planned and executed.
The free world and the Western world must ultimately demonstrate the political courage and resolve that Canada has shown and shut down the embassies and consulates affiliated with the Islamic Republic. Unfortunately, however, for certain powers and deceitful, deal-making figures in Western politics, posing for commemorative photographs with a murderous regime remains acceptable — a regime whose recent record includes the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in January and which, to this day, has executed hundreds more or placed them on death row. Once again, one must ask: Why are the regime’s “dens of espionage” and terrorist hideouts operating beneath diplomatic flags not being neutralized?
Naturally, following the closure of the Islamic Republic’s embassy, Canada may perhaps be considered somewhat safer. Although the United States severed diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic in 1980, Iran continues to maintain an interests section operating under the auspices of the Pakistani Embassy. From Voice of America’s Persian Service TV in Washington to Channel One (a notorious pro-regime Persian-language television network) in California, the regime continues to maintain its own echo chamber. Its stooges, appeasers, apologists, and spies remain active in the United States, attempting to present an alternative image of the regime that has no basis in reality.
Western democracies may have been lying to themselves for the past 47 years, still clinging to the unattainable dream of finding reformists — Islamist leftists — or the so-called moderates in Iran. What makes this even more striking is that the government in Iran is not a national government at all, but a criminal group or terrorist cult whose business is warmongering and manufacturing crises.
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As Ross Perot once said, “If you see a snake, just kill it. Don’t appoint a committee on snakes.” Interestingly, these days, the former revolutionaries are increasingly worried and are attacking Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi precisely because he is doing his job right. Their anxiety over their own future is no coincidence. Meanwhile, signs of cracks in the regime’s leadership are becoming increasingly apparent. The terrorists know that their ship is sinking, and they are desperately searching for — and are prepared to sign — any agreement that might guarantee their survival. Yet the Western world’s failure, even in the 21st century, to eradicate this malignant tumor will ultimately have grave consequences for humanity and humankind alike.
The central question is no longer whether the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary ideology is compatible with the principles of the free world, but how long Western democracies will continue to tolerate the alleged exploitation of diplomatic institutions for purposes fundamentally hostile to those principles. Forty-seven years of political accommodation, misplaced expectations, and the endless pursuit of imaginary moderates have not resolved the underlying conflict. Embassies must serve diplomacy, not intimidation; consulates must protect legitimate interests, not provide cover for clandestine operations; and diplomatic immunity must never become immunity from accountability. The ultimate test of Western political courage is not the language of condemnation, but the willingness to investigate, expose, and confront abuses wherever credible evidence establishes them. History will judge not merely the crimes attributed to the Islamic Republic but also the decisions of those who possessed the power to challenge them and chose instead to look away.
Erfan Fard is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East studies researcher based in Washington, with a particular focus on Iran, Islamic terrorism, and ethnic conflicts in the region.