LONDON – Britain has replaced America as Iran's "Great Satan."

That's the upshot of the announcement Wednesday that the Islamic Republic of Iran is considering downgrading its diplomatic ties to Britain, the country's former colonial ruler.

The comments by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Iranian state television signal a concerted effort to blame the British for the chaotic postelection street demonstrations threatening the government, experts say.

"The British role as former colonial masters makes them easy targets," said Michael Williams, a professor of international relations at the University of London who advised Barack Obama's campaign on foreign affairs.

"The Iranians have a history of using the British as a proxy when they can't get at the United States."

Williams said the Obama administration has been very careful not to fuel the volatile situation, while the British have drawn verbal fire because of the BBC's prominent role as trusted broadcaster inside Iran.

"The BBC Persian Service is very popular and respected in Iran, and the BBC is working actively to increase its satellite coverage and foil Iranian attempts to block their signal, this has made the Iranian government very suspicious," he said.

Williams also noted the British have opened their embassy in Tehran to treat people injured in the demonstrations.

Suspicions that the British are helping to keep the protests going prompted the Iranian government to expel two British diplomats, prompting Britain to respond in kind Tuesday.

Britain has many historical ties to Iran — far more than the United States or other Western countries — that help to explain the bad blood between the countries.

Tensions go back as far as the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan, a British-brokered treaty that ceded Iranian land to Russia and painted all British intentions as devious in Iran's eyes. In the 1860s, Britain helped draw Iran's borders with India.

In 1907, Britain and Russia shared Iran under the "spheres of influence" doctrine because an independent Iran was seen as a threat to their imperial interests. The next year, British Petroleum found huge quantities of oil in Iran, exploiting it for decades until the oil fields were nationalized in 1951.

In the 1920s, British forces coordinated Reza Shah Pahlavi's ascension to the emperor's Peacock throne. The dynasty lasted until his son was later overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Ben Wallace, a Conservative Party lawmaker on the all-party parliamentary committee on Iran, said Iran's leaders have singled Britain out because it is one of only three Western countries that still have diplomatic missions there.

"The Shah is long dead but there is still a feeling that there must be some conspiracy from the outside," he said. Wallace was supposed to travel to Iran Sunday on a fact-finding mission, but his visa was revoked.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, a professor at Oxford and Rutgers universities who has made frequent trips to Tehran, said some of Iran's anger at Britain stems from the firmly held belief that Britain four years ago used its military presence in Basra, Iraq, to spur uprisings across the border inside Iran.

"They argued that Britain was expanding its influence inside Iran," he said. "That was a turning point."

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Associated Press Writers Paisley Dodds and Nardine Saad contributed to this report.