mr president the iranian revolution of nineteen seventy-nine will one day be seen as an epochal event on a par with the french revolution of seventeen eighty-nine and the russian revolution of nineteen seventeen
like those it immediately spilled out from behind its borders and sought to replicate itself around the world
like those it made no acknowledgement of the principles of sovereignty or territorial jurisdiction
the signature act of the ayatollahs was the siege of the american embassy
even in the second world war when mutually opposed ideologies fought to extirpate each other the sanctity of diplomatic legations was respected
what the ayatollahs were doing was signalling that the old rules did not apply to them and that they answered to a different authority
they have carried on as they started disregarding any notion of territorial jurisdiction sponsoring their militias and their terrorist organisations
from the gulf to the lebanon to the silk road khanates to the balkans they have struck at civilian targets as far away as london and buenos aires
i cannot help feeling that we would be in an even stronger position to condemn them if we had more respect ourselves for the principle of territorial jurisdiction and indeed democracy
i hope that those members who have spoken very sincerely and movingly about the lack of representative government in iran will apply the same high standards the next time we have a referendum within the european union
