Yes, Mark, you are entirely right. One of the bedrocks of Iranian popular culture is the belief that everything that happens in the world–and especially in their very own neighborhood–only happens because the CIA and/or the Queen of England wanted it, and thus caused it. You can be sure that, to the extent the Iranian people (currently on holiday and thus not very attentive to the daily news) are engaged in the hostage crisis, they (darkly) suspect that the whole thing is a (satanic) plot hatched by collusion between the Queen and the mullahs.

Really.

And I’ve got emails to prove it, hoHO…