Great Britain is now the "Great Satan"

To Iran's leaders, London has always been the "Little Satan", as opposed to the "Great Satan" in Washington. But that has changed. Why? Well, the short answer is the BBC's new Persian television service. But first, a brief chronology:

Last Friday, thousands of Iranians arrived at Tehran University. They had come to hear Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, pray and talk about the protests that have shaken the country since the presidential election. "Death to America!" the people shouted repeatedly, interrupting his speech. "Death to Israel!" they cried. But they were loudest when they chanted "Death to England!"

The ecstasy of anti-British rage came when Khamenei singled out "evil" Britain as the country's main enemy. The next day, the highly influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, called for a review of relations with the UK, while the foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, claimed that Britain was trying to "sabotage the election".

On Sunday, the BBC correspondent in Tehran, Jon Leyne, was given 24 hours to leave Iran. On Monday, the British ambassador in Tehran was told that two members of the embassy staff had to leave the country. Yesterday, the British Foreign Office announced that two Iranian embassy officials were going to be expelled in response. Immediately, a crowd of supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gathered outside the British embassy in Tehran, burning homemade Union flags and throwing tomatoes at the building.

And this brings us back to the BBC. The Iranian establishment has become increasingly angry at the broadcaster's Persian service, which offers opponents of the regime a powerful forum for their opinions. It is also livid with the British Government for its criticism of the repression that followed the election. That's why Great Britain is now the "Great Satan".