In escalating tensions between Britain and Iran, the Iranian hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still holds in custody four local staffers of the British embassy in Tehran.

Nine staffers – all Iranian citizens – were arrested over the weekend under the pretext that they were involved in inciting protestors in the streets of Iran after what many Iranians – and most of the world – saw as a stolen election. The British Foreign Minister David Miliband, while in Greece, vehemently denied the charge that any members of the British mission were involved in any protest organization or incitement. Five staffers have since been released.

The arrest came on the heels of Iran kicking out two British diplomats under the same rubric. Britain returned the compliment and declared persona non grata two Iranian diplomats. The assault against Britain is odd. The country maintains diplomatic ties with Iran [they were restored in 1988 after broken in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution] and has worked toward a diplomatic settlement with Iran’s nuclear program. It is the United States that is usually the demonized figure – the Great Satan – but Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni singled out Britain for alleged interference in Iran’s election dispute.

Iran may be just signaling out Britain in an effort to provoke an international backlash that will work – or it thinks – to the hard-line faction’s advantage. An international barrage of criticism will allow demagogue Ahmadinejad to declare that the world is against Iran and then justify a domestic clampdown in the name of national unity in the face of a foreign foe. If that is what Iran is seeking through its arbitrary, unlawful behavior then it is working.

The European Union had voiced unequivocal support for Britain and threatened to withdraw – “temporarily” – all its ambassadors from Tehran in solidarity with the four remaining imprisoned British staffers. That may be exactly what Iran wants.