After what has been described as a “handful of bearded militants” gathered outside the foreign ministry office in Tehran and demanded the 15 British hostages be hung, an action that must have been approved by the Iranian regime due to all other protests in Iran being violently ended, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and general spokesman Ali Larijani claimed England has escalated the incident by asking the UN Security Council to step in.

And it’s interesting about who escalated the incident. The Telegraph notes the hostage taking was relegated to the back pages until video of the hostages aired on state-run television. Now the entire incident is being played out like anyone would expect; an act of aggression by England.

Despite the media escalation within Iran, Larijani claims it is England who has amped it up.

“Instead of sending a technical team to examine the problem, they kicked up a media storm, announced a freeze in relations and spoke about the security council. That will not resolve the problem. They have miscalculated,” he said.

But the talk about the UNSC only happend yesterday, long after Iran paraded the 15 hostages on television and before the protesters appeared. England did announce a freeze a few days ago, but what would Iran expect would happen when they take 15 British soldiers hostage? Did Iran think England would send the Queen (remember, she’s ‘the enemy of Islam’) to Tehran to marry Prince Ahmadinejad?

In fact the self-made media blitz in Tehran will make it more difficult for this entire incident to end without the complete subversion of England because Ahmadinejad has already taken many hits locally, he has to wonder if he can take another blow. It seems clear the original taking of the British soldiers was the escalation, followed by televised coverage of the hostages, the puppeteering of Faye Turney and the reneging of a promise to release Miss Turney are all escalations, and they are all on the Iranian side. England, for its part, has been playing catchup and I have often wondered if Jimmy Carter is giving Tony Blair advice on how to proceed.

Oh, but wait. Here’s another escalation, also on the Iranian side. Late last night Iran warned the British soldiers will be put on trial, the second time the identical threat has been made and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. Of course forcing Turney to wear a headscarf is too, but no one seems to care when Iran does anything wrong.

In an interview with ITV News, Mr Blair was asked about the treatment of 26-year-old Ldg Seaman Turney who was paraded on TV in Iran.

“I just think it’s completely wrong, a disgrace actually, when people are used in that way,” Mr Blair said.

“That’s contrary to all international laws and conventions, and is not going to make any difference to us. We need all 15 released because they were doing their job under a UN mandate. There is no justification whatsoever for taking them in that way.”

But that’s how Iran operates, Mr. Blair. They always have since the Islamic Revolution and likely will always act in similar fashion. We’ve seen almost the exact thing occur several times yet each time the entire world acts shocked, shocked at what I am not entirely sure, but shocked nonetheless.

And of that Iranian ‘evidence:’

The “evidence” produced amounted to a senior officer pointing to crosses on a map in Iranian territory and a vague picture of a GPS device with coordinates.

The Iranian’s claim that the Britons were in its waters have been undermined by the country giving two different sets of co-ordinates, one that placed the troops in Iraq and then a later version that put them well inside Iran.

I presume the same Iranian officer will soon face charges of proselytizing for drawing crosses.

UPDATE: Who is escalating the incident?  Iran claims England is, but Iran has now trotted out another British soldier for a television appearence and released a third letter allegedly from Faye Turney.  They are using the British soldiers as props in their own propaganda war, and thus far England is letting them.

And perfect.  A BBC correspondent writes an opinion and files it under news, but his opinion is that all of this is the fault of, you probably guessed it, the United States.  Damn!  We Americans are in everything, including the conspiracy behing Blu-Ray or HD DVD.