Whilst addressing large crowds gathered today for Friday prayers at Tehran University, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei singled out the British government as the most "evil" of those criticizing the results of the Iranian Presidential election.
It was in his State of the Union address in 2002 that former US President George W Bush coined the phrase "Axis of Evil" to describe the regimes of Iran, Iraq and North Korea. And in January 2007 it was Yahya Rahim Safavi, Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who returned the compliment when he reportedly said:
America, Britain and the Zionist regime (Israel) are an axis of evil against the Islamic world and the whole of humanity
It is probably no exaggeration to say that of the three countries named by the Commander it is the USA and Israel who have continued to receive the most attention and disdain from the Iranian leadership. Until it seems today.
For in a sermon in which he also ordered a stop to the protests that have followed the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and endorsed the victor in the election, saying that he was a man who shared many of his views on key areas of policy, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had harsh words for Western governments who were questioning the validity of Mr Ahmadinejad's victory. And, as the
BBC reports, it was Britain for whom he reserved his harshest words, saying:
I urge old friends and brothers to be patient and keep control of ourselves.
Please see the hands of the enemy. Please see the hungry wolves in ambush, who are gradually even removing their mask of diplomacy and showing their true faces. Be aware of them. Today, senior diplomats of some Western countries, who addressed us diplomatically up until today, have now removed their masks. They are showing their true faces. They are showing their enmity against the Islamic Republic system and the most evil of them is the British government.
Defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was conspicuous by his absence from the gathering, shown live on Iranian state TV, despite Mr Khamenei instructing him to attend. But President Ahmadinejad was present and he heard the Supreme Leader refer in his sermon to the margin of victory in the election, said to be eleven million, as so great as to make a mockery of any vote-rigging allegations.
The British Government's response to the sermon was almost immediate, as they summoned Iranian Ambassador Rasul Movaheddian to the Foreign Office so that they could protest at the language used by Mr Khamenei. However a junior official was sent in the Ambassador's place for a meeting that is said to have been no more than twenty minutes long.
A motive for Mr Khamenei's attack on Britain is not entirely clear although the
BBC states that British Diplomatic sources believe the real target of the sermon to be the US, but by specifically referring to the US the Ayatollah might have jeopardized the improvement in relations that Iran has recently enjoyed with the Americans.
