Illustration: Tang Tengfei/Global Times

After Israel bombed the Iranian embassy, resulting in 16 deaths, the US actively worked to prevent the UN from condemning Israel. Yet, following Iran's relatively restrained retaliation against Israel, with no deaths caused, the US and the EU are eager to impose a new round of sanctions on Iran. The double standards of the West are glaringly obvious and blatant in this situation.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the US intends to hit Iran with new sanctions in coming days. EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell also stated on the same day that the EU has started work on expanding Iran sanctions. Yellen said the Treasury will not hesitate to work with US allies to use sanctions authority to continue disrupting the "malign and destabilizing activity" of the Iranian regime.

Li Weijian, a research fellow with the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times that he believes Israel's attack on the Iranian embassy is a clear violation of the UN Charter and international law. Given opposition from the US, Britain and France, the UN Security Council failed to condemn Israel's attack on Iranian diplomatic institutions. In response to Israel's clear violation of international law, the US and its allies chose to condone it. Now, they are even attempting to appease Israel with economic sanctions against Iran. Obviously, for the US, determining right and wrong is clearly based on its own interests.

Iran has been living under US sanctions for decades. So far, the US has pushed for four UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran. However, the effectiveness of US sanctions is becoming increasingly limited. Iran has developed a set of ways to deal with Western sanctions, according to Tang Zhichao, a Middle East analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Tang said that for Iran, US sanctions in areas such as oil and weapons are not new, and the US has consistently failed to achieve its goal of forcing Iran to submit through sanctions. Additionally, the main purpose of these planned sanctions by the US is to appease Israel, which fully exposes the consistent double standards of the US.

The fundamental cause of the current conflict between Israel and Iran is the Palestine-Israel conflict. Yet the US turned a blind eye to the root causes of the Middle East crisis. Worse, since the Palestine-Israel conflict began, the US has not made enough effort to stop Israel's actions, instead it has provided a large amount of military aid and political support to Israel, turning itself into an absolute accomplice and conspirator in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

Today, the West is once again demonizing Iran, which is helping Israel divert international attention. A recent article in The Sun believes that the mutually assured destruction of Iran and Israel is inevitable, even simulating how the conflict between the two countries could escalate into a nuclear war and trigger World War III. Li believes such exaggerated "predictions" are a trick commonly used by Western media to attract attention and exaggerate the nuclear threat posed by Iran. 

Nowadays, Western media outlets are hyping up the conflict between Iran and Israel, bringing Iran to the forefront of the Palestine-Israel conflict and intending to shift the international community's attention away from the real crux of the conflict. Tang believes the US, Western countries and Israel are facing immense international pressure on the Gaza conflict. They are trying to divert attention by exaggerating the threat posed by Iran and sensationalizing Iran's strike against Israel. By constantly favoring Israel, the US will only embolden Israel's provocative behavior. Only when the US and Western countries abandon double standards can they effectively alleviate the tension in the Middle East and achieve breakthroughs in fostering justice and peace in the region.