In todays Mullah news, Iranian lawmakers voted to resume uranium enrichment and end snap UN checks of its nuclear sites if Tehran is referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Sanctions are being considered after Iran failed to convince, well, anyone that their atomic scientists are working on power stations and not nukes.
Clearly, Iran doesn’t like sanctions or even the threat of sanctions. US sanctions against Iran have already forced the Iranians to buy crappy outmoded Russian aircraft, that even the Russians don’t want. The Iranians are also seeking to increase trade with the Chinese, but Iran already has plenty of AK-47s, the Mullahs are not keen on importing bootlegged western movies and there is a limited demand in Iran for chopsticks and fortune cookies.
On a serious note, Laura Secor wrote an interesting piece in the New Yorker about the collapse of the Iranian reform movement. She quotes a young Iranian security official as follows:
The majority of the population is young. Young people by nature are horny. Because they are horny, they like to watch satellite channels where there are films or programs they can jerk off to. We have to do something about satellite television to keep society free from this horny jerk off situation.
Secor then added:
My translator implored me, in a jaw-clenched monotone, ‘Please do not laugh right now. This is a very sensitive moment.’
Secor’s article is not available online but for all you Iranophiles out there too cheap to spring for a New Yorker, there is an interesting interview with Secor about her experience in Iran.
I can’t help thinking about how soft and superior US made Kleenex is to Russian and Chinese made tissue paper. Now not only are the Mullahs mad, but young, reform minded Iranian men… well, they gotta be aa bit resentful, no? Is it wise to alienate those sympathetic to Western values in Iran? Or will their frustration result in a Kleenex Revolution? Stay tuned I guess …
Tip of the hat to the Muk Report.
esther
11/20/2005
Oh the subtlety of graphics. Why not just name the post “‘They-Bop’: Young Iranians are ‘Turning Japanese’”
Maybe that should be Jewlicious’s newest goal/catchphrase: “Doing something to keep society free from the horny jerk-off situation.”
hmm
11/20/2005
Just picturing that “please do not laugh” moment in Secor’s interview tickled me to no end. If I’d been in Secor’s place I would’ve had to restrain myself so hard I’d have given myself a hernia.
taltman
11/20/2005
Just picturing that “please do not laugh” moment in Secor’s interview tickled me to no end.
Yeah, reminds me of the “Biggus Diccus” scene from Monty Python: The Life of Brian.
Khorshid
11/21/2005
So far as Iranians are concerned, there are no differences between the “reformist” anti-Iranian Islamists and “hardliner” anti-Iranian Islamists. They merely represent various mafia factions within a blood sucking regime at war with my country for nearly 27 years…with western press either turning away or energizing its dead batteries with such myths as that of the reformability of anti-Iranian Islamist terror.