I have twice had the privilege of sitting, poorly shaved, on the floor and attending the Friday prayers that the Iranian theocracy sponsors each week on the campus of Tehran University. As everybody knows, this dreary, nasty ceremony is occasionally enlivened when the scrofulous preacher leads the crowd in a robotic chant of Marg Bar Amrika! -- "Death to America!" As nobody will be surprised to learn, this is generally followed by a cry of Marg Bar Israel! And it's by no means unknown for the three-beat bleat of this two-minute hate to have yet a third version: Marg Bar Ingilis!

"Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei

laid his greatest emphasis on the third of these incantations. "The most evil of them all," he droned, "is the British government." But the real significance of his weird accusation has generally been missed.