Why Iran Is Obsessed with the British

In a briefing to heads of foreign missions in Tehran this week, Manochehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, lambasted the West for its criticism of the Iranian elections. Taking his lead from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mr Mottaki reserved his severest criticism for Britain.

In what must rank as one of the most idiotic statements made by a serving Foreign Minister of an Iranian Government, Mr Mottaki charged that “they [the British Government] sent planes full of passengers to Iran with special intelligence and security ambitions”, providing as evidence of this apparent deluge of spies, the observation that “they had to turn the small flights to Tehran from the UK into Boeing 747 airliners”.