Iranian media switches to war footing
February 14, 2007 by Will
When a country’s state journalists replace the word “nuclear” with “N.” and everyone knows what they mean, it’s safe that bet that country’s government is steeped in belligerence. This is the case in Iran, where threats to the outside world have gone from overstated to hyperbolic in recent days. A brief look at the “news” from state agencies should disabuse anyone of the idea that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only wants nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
The first article comes from the Fars News Agency, an organ of Ahmadinejad’s government. In it, the speaker of the Iranian parliament promises
“The Untied States should know that if it decides to invade Iran, then every window in our country will be a trench of warriors who fight the enemies
The speaker’s combination of domestic and martial imagery recalls Churchill’s famous speech in World War II where he promised that the British people would fight Nazis “in the fields and in the streets.” “Untied States” is probably a typo, but it’s more fun to imagine the speaker of Iran’s parliament is so desperate for ideas he cribs slogans from aging hippies.
Also in FARS, Iranian demonstrators are described as “defending N. achievements to the last drop of blood.” Even though the United Nations Security Council members and other responsible nations are pursuing diplomatic options, the mullah government seems to have convinced its citizens that a land war will erupt. The Islamic Republic News Agency, who holds to about the same rigorous standard of journalistic ethics as FARS, ran a similar report, quoting the Minister of Defence saying Iran “would give a crushing response to the least violation of the country’s territorial integrity”.
More than demonstrating the regime’s willingness to brainwash or bribe some of its citizens into the streets, FARS’s focus on violence should show how highly the Iranian clerical oligarchy values nuclear weapons–and how, like a mirror to their ambition, we should be equally concerned.
