TEHRAN – The UN Security Council held a meeting on Tuesday at the request of Iran, Syria, and Russia to discuss an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, which killed 13 people including senior Iranian military advisers. 

While the majority of member states united in condemning the Israeli aggression, the staunch Western supporters of the regime chose not to denounce the act. This decision led to renewed accusations of hypocrisy and a lack of moral integrity against them.

“The U.S., UK, and France proved that they have no regard for international law and international institutions. Had a Western embassy been targeted in a similar manner in the region, these nations would have lost their minds and reacted with extreme outrage,” Hassan Hanizadeh, an expert on international affairs told the Tehran Times. “What happened during the UNSC meeting was an ugly face of today’s reality: the Western powers are exploiting international law for their own interests and posing a significant threat to international peace and security,” he said, adding that the West is also breaching international law by helping Israel break UN conventions.  

“Israel creating regional war”
 
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, condemned Israel’s latest and previous attacks targeting Syria, warning that the regime’s Monday move aimed to spread war in the region.

“Such aggressive actions are designed to further fuel the conflict and might have extremely dangerous consequences for the entire region,” Nebenzia stated.

Analysts have been warning that Israel seems to be trying to drag the U.S. into a regional war with Iran and resistance forces. Tehran has vowed to make Israel “regret” the embassy attack sparking fears that a large-scale war is indeed on the way. 

Other observers point out that the U.S. has consistently denied any involvement or prior knowledge of the attack, indicating a reluctance to escalate tensions with Iran regardless of Tehran's response to the latest aggression by the regime.

“The U.S. is fine with dealing a blow to Iran any chance it gets. There is no way that Washington did not know about the attack. They probably even helped carry it out. But at the same time, the U.S. is not looking to get into a war with Iran,” Seyyed Hadi Afghahi, who is a senior expert on the West Asia region, told the Tehran Times. 

In 2020, after Washington assassinated Iran’s anti-terror icon Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on Baghdad, it warned that it would attack “52 Iranian sites” if Tehran decided to respond to the assassination. 

"Let this serve as a warning that if Iran strikes any Americans or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and very hard,” Former U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted. "The USA wants no more threats!"

Iran ended up firing missiles at Washington’s most important base in Iraq, the Ain al-Asad base. The U.S. said 109 American soldiers suffered “brain injury” as a result of the attack. It, however, did not strike any of those “52 Iranian sites” as warned by Trump.

“It is true that the U.S. can hurt us in a war. But it also has to contemplate the consequences of a full-on conflict with Iran. Tehran could destroy all the American bases in the region and send back Washington’s Arab allies to the Stone Age. Most importantly, potential Iranian attacks could disrupt the international supply of energy for several years,” Afghahi said, noting that Europe is already in the throes of an energy crisis due to the Ukraine war. “I don’t think there will be a war between Iran and the United States. As for Israel, I advise them not to think about confronting Iran when they haven’t even managed to defeat Hamas after 6 months.”

“Israel above intl. law”

The recent UN Security Council meeting also focused on a great concern of regional countries: Israel seems to be above the law and it feels free to commit any crimes as it never faces any consequences. 

“The purpose of such a deliberate action is clear: to respond to international pressure by escalating conflicts. It is clear that the purpose of this action is to drag the entire region into conflict, and it shows a sense of immunity on the part of the occupying Israeli regime, which considers itself above international law,” the Algerian representative said in the meeting, adding, “The integrity of our international order is at risk and there must be consequences for this flagrant disregard for the law in order to uphold our collective commitment to the law.”

Russia is expected to propose a resolution at the Security Council to condemn Israel’s unprecedented attack on diplomatic premises. Many believe this is a chance for the United Nations to finally draw a line in the sand, and hold Israel accountable for its absolute disregard for international law. 

“The Zionist regime has breached international conventions. The United Nations should defend its legitimacy,” Iran’s envoy to Syria Hossein Akbari told reporters on Wednesday.