Iranian moves against Britain reflect old suspicions

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran's expulsion of two British diplomats suggest Tehran is trying to use deep-rooted suspicions of the British to deflect blame for bloody protests over a disputed presidential election.

The move, which Britain responded to by ordering two Iranian diplomats to leave London, marked a further downwards lurch in relations, already strained over Britain's energetic support for tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

The expulsions also underscore Iran's anger over a new Persian-language BBC satellite television channel, funded by the British government, which is broadcasting news of the post-election protests into Iran.

"I think it's a lot to do with trying to create national unity by creating a common external enemy which is traditionally the British," Claire Spencer, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House thinktank, told Reuters.

Iran has accused Western powers of interfering in its affairs after official results of the June 12 election gave a landslide victory to hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sparking protests in which at least 17 people have been killed.

Iranian suspicions of London date back to its imperial rule in the Middle East and its support for a U.S.-engineered coup that toppled popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian oil company, a forerunner of BP.

British influence in the region has long since been eclipsed by Washington, and a British politician said Iran was acting against Britain because it wanted to find a foreign scapegoat without directly confronting the United States.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said America was prepared to extend a hand of peace to Iran if it "unclenched its fist," and has been careful to avoid appearing to meddle in its affairs. He toughened his criticism of Iran on Tuesday, calling scenes of death in Tehran "heartbreaking."

"To rebuff Obama as early as this would not be very sound politics," Mike Gapes, chairman of the British parliament's Foreign Affairs committee, told Reuters.

REVIEWING TIES

Iran's intelligence minister said on Wednesday some people with British passports were involved in post-election violence, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was reviewing whether to downgrade ties with Britain.

Iranians' obsession with the British was satirized in a popular 1970s Iranian novel and television series "My Uncle Napoleon," which pokes fun at how Iranians see everything that goes wrong as a British conspiracy.

Iran broke off relations with Britain 20 years ago after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy in his book "The Satanic Verses."

Relations were upgraded to ambassadorial level in 1999, but the Rushdie affair has remained a source of tension.

Britain's support for the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq in 2003 and the recent launch of the BBC Persian channel, fueled Iranian suspicion of British meddling, Rosemary Hollis, Middle East expert at City University in London, told Sky News.

The BBC's Persian TV service was launched in January, funded with 15 million pounds ($24.7 million) a year from the British government. The BBC increased the number of satellites carrying the service after Iran interfered with transmission.

Iran expelled the BBC's correspondent in Tehran, Jon Leyne, over the broadcaster's election coverage, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week called Britain the "most treacherous" of Iran's enemies.

Trade between the two countries has been depressed by sanctions in recent years. But, according to the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce, British exports of goods to Iran rose by 1 percent in the first 11 months of 2008 to 363.4 million pounds. British imports from Iran rose 3 percent to 63.9 million pounds.

Britain does much less business with Iran than other European countries such as Germany, Italy and France, however.

"Anglo-Iranian relations are going to take a deep turn south because they (Iran) need a scapegoat," said Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

(Additional reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Dominic Evans and Janet McBride)