Correction: U.S. raided Iran's proto consulate in Iraq, regional war postponed

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 2:35 PM on January 12, 2007.

Yesterday, American forces raided what was widely reported to be an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq.

Now the Iraqi foreign minister is helpfully re-describing the facility as an Iraqi-government approved liason office that was in the process of becoming a consulate:

The Iranians were detained Thursday as multinational forces entered the building overnight and confiscated computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Six people suspected of being involved in attacks against Iraqi civilians and military forces were initially detained, the U.S. military said in a statement. One was later released. The statement did not identify the nationalities of the suspects.

Iraqi and Iranian officials initially said the Iranian office was a diplomatic mission, raising questions about whether those detained had diplomatic immunity. But Zebari told The Associated Press that the Iranians worked at a ''liaison office'' that was in the process of becoming a consulate.

''This office is not new and has been there for more than 10 years,'' he said. ''We are now in the process of changing these offices to consulates and ... we will open consulates in Iran.''

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the facility was an ''office of relations'' and that it was waiting for permission to operate as a consulate. The U.S. Embassy also said it was assured the building was not a consulate. [NYT]

Iran reached an agreement Iraq to set up a consulate in Arbil last year. According to Iranian state television the Kurdish authorities had already given the office permission to function as a consulate and the facility was in the "final stages of receiving permission from the Iraqi government".

Spencer Ackerman visited that Arbil office last year, and it was called the Iranian consulate then.

It's awfully convenient that everyone's backing off the "consulate" designation, following an announcement from the Iraqi foreign minister. Attacking another country's consulate is the equivalent of an attack on that country's soil, and therefore an act of war.

Yet, it's also perplexing. Yesterday, everyone was sure it was a consulate: U.S. media, Al Jazeera, Iranian news services...even the head of the Kurdish regional government considered it a consulate.

Backing off the consulate designation is win-win. The prisoners probably don't get diplomatic immunity, so the U.S. gets something. Iran doesn't have to react to the U.S. raid as an act of war, so that's good for everyone. All in all, it's a damned good thing that everyone is now going along with the proto-consulate line.

Looks like everyone just took a small step back from the abyss.

[Too Hot for TNR]

Tagged as: iran, war, iraq, raid, arbil, consulate

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.