Two to tango: Why Iran turns dance partners into enemies

Iran has also ordered a commission to investigate the consequences of the Soviet occupation during World War II, raising hackles in a nation sensitive to its role in the Allied victory. All this, topped off by Iran's defiant statements on its nuclear program and February moves to boost uranium enrichment levels, has helped prompt a change of thinking in Russia.

"This is quite a long list," says Alexander Pikayev, a nonproliferation expert at the Center for International Security in Moscow, adding what he believes is Iran's rationale. "First [the Iranians] want to punish the Russians for their support of sanctions. Second, they believe they are very strong now and probably don't need any outside support."

US hopes for engagement dimming

President Obama's efforts to reach out to the Iranian regime are another diplomatic casualty, in which Iran's leaders "probably miscalculated in terms of improving US-Iranian relations under the Obama administration," says Mr. Pikayev.

Supreme religious leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei responded to Mr. Obama's overtures with a litany of historical grievances of US wrongs against Iran, starting with the CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953. Analysts said it was a necessary first response after decades of making "Death to America" a pillar of regime ideology, and did not exclude future talks.

But after Mr. Ahmadinejad's contested reelection and the crackdown that followed, hopes for US engagement have dimmed.

Britain, Canada also turned away

Other episodes include Britain's wooing of Tehran during reformist President Mohammad Khatami's rule, which was going well until London chose its new ambassador – a veteran diplomat who spoke Persian and was married to an Iranian.

Though not Jewish, he was denounced as a "Zionist spy" and rejected.

Canada also had very friendly diplomatic relations with Iran until Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer Zahra Kazemi died in Iranian custody in 2003. While Iranian authorities blamed a stroke, physicians said she was tortured.

"A case like Zahra Kazemi doesn't come about because the government wants to damage relations with Canada, but because the dynamics of domestic politics take over, and then foreign relations with a state like Canada become the victim," says Boroujerdi.

"As far as the Iranian elites are concerned, they look at it through the prism of how their actions are going to consolidate their power domestically," he adds. "Over the last three decades [to roughly 1997], we have seen the assassination of over 100 Iranian dissidents, much of it in Europe [where] every single one ... has caused diplomatic turmoil of some sort.

"But the thinking is that this will blow over, and after a while the need for oil and markets will swing the pendulum again to their favor."

IN PICTURES: Iran's Islamic Revolution

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