That building had been completely taken over by non-Iranians. Even still, the British didn't enter it until the hostage-takers began executing the Iranians. "T

That building had been completely taken over by non-Iranians. Even still, the British didn't enter it until the hostage-takers began executing the Iranians. "Three further shots were fired during the course of the imam's conversation with Oan. Oan announced that a hostage had been killed, and the rest would die in 30 minutes unless his demands were met. A few minutes later, Lavasani's body was dumped out of the front door." Considering they were at the time holding 52 American hostages in the US embassy in Tehran, the Iranians couldn't credibly complain about the British rescue operation representing a violation of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. I guess I don't think that precedent is going to generalize to many other situations.