There has been an essentially bizarre groping around for phrasing of what was done in Damascus.
This was an attack on the Iranian embassy there. There has been a leap by the media to label this a “consulate” and a “diplomatic mission”, but neither matters (or is actually true).
More or less ALL embassies everywhere have a consul annex. Consulates have various tasks like passport and visa issuance, diplomatic meetings, aid for citizens in that foreign country, a general task of serving citizens of the embassy’s country in that foreign country where it resides.
Consul activities are part of embassies and the building where they take place is a consulate or consul annex. You can have consulates in cities of a country where there is no embassy, but in a city where the embassy exists, the consulate is part of the embassy.
And as everyone should know, an embassy is granted sovereignty and is the territory of the country represented.
So this strange groping by the media to call the Damascus facility something other than an embassy (it was physically on the Embassy’s land) is absurd. You attack a consulate, you have attacked an embassy and violated territory and violated all diplomatic immunity.
There is no evading this. It is also not a matter of whataboutism. It simply is.