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Projecting the New Bogeyman: Iran
By TOURAJ DARYAEE
This month a new film was released in the US entitled Iranium, which
is a combination of name of the country Iran with uranium. In the past
Hollywood had made a number of movies such as Not Without My Daughter,
filmed in 1991 in Neve Ilan, Israel and more recently the more nuanced
movie 300 which tried to demonstrate the notion that Iran (Persia) has
been at war with the “peaceful” and “free-loving” West for the past
2500 years. That movie too was the work of conservative and neocons
projecting current problem in the Middle East onto the past in the
guise of a graphic-novel. What makes Iranium different from the above
mentioned Hollywood films is that it claims to be a powerful report or
a documentary on Iran on what has been happening for the past 30 years
and its nuclear program. Indeed this film is as serious and
report-worthy as the movie Star Wars is on the state of our galaxy.
Still facts and fiction have been cemented together for one aim and
that is the bombing of Iran, so that it becomes prosperous, free and
democratic like Iraq and Afghanistan of today.
Nowadays a new boogieman has entered the American public life and that
is Islam, and even those who are born in the Middle East. However,
what makes the movie Iranium different from those mentioned above is
that it has a clear message and intention and it is paid for by
certain interested entities for a very clear reason. The movie
emphasizes the hate that supposedly Iran has for the US and the
international community and the danger of the destruction of the world
(more precisely, Israel). The movie suggests that the US has not done
anything to contain Iran, a sign of its weakness. This is of course in
clear ignorance of the fact that Iran has been surrounded by US forces
in Iraq, Republic of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a host of
Persian Gulf Arab States and that it has been under heavy sanctions
for decades. The film suggests that from the Iranian hostage crisis to
Obama’s administration, the US has been soft against Iran in the past
30 odd years.
Iran is blamed for every bombing in Africa and the Middle East. From
the bombings in Beirut in 1983 to the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania
in 1998 to Yemen in 2000, to even the 9/11, there are innuendos that
Iran was involved in some way. The movie suggests Iran is behind every
mischief that is taking place in the world in the past 30 years. Some
of these allegations are documented and some are unclear, but many
more is so far from the truth that one wonders why people with big
titles and representatives of the US or other countries would make
such claims that “Iran gave support to hijackers” of the 9/11
bombings. This claim is as accurate as stating that Darth Vader from
outer space helped the hijackers in their aim.
“Experts” from many news programs are prodded and the most trusted and
accurate of them all, Fox News takes the majority of these showings in
the film. But the first 40 minutes of the film is just a setup for
what those behind the film really want to tell and that is Iran’s
nuclear threat to the US, Israel and the world. The maps and diagrams
show Iran’s capability through it proxies reaching Spain, Sweden, UK
and Russia, or more directly their ability to load a dirty bomb or
through missile attack on a cargo ship hitting such places as
“Washington DC, Baltimore and New York.” Again, it is suggested that
it is possible that Iran could launch an electromagnetic bomb in the
atmosphere above the US which according to the film, in a year will
kill 9 out of 10 Americans!
This is a good story for films that would be on the same shelf as the
Day that the Earth Stood Still to The Blob. This part of the film
certainly reminded me the science fiction movies and quite interesting
in the range of imagination and paranoia. What is more disturbing to
me and many other Iranian-Americans is the contention that Iranians
may be able to infiltrate the US through the US-Mexico Border. How do
you distinguish between the “good” and “bad” Iranians? Do you gather
all of them and place them into camps and interrogate all 2 million of
them? What do you do with the millions of Iranians in the US who have
already “infiltrated” the country and are now lawyers, doctors,
university professors and successful entrepreneurs? In fact the
Iranian-Americans are one of the highest educated minorities in the US
and their contribution has been enormous. These Iranians came here for
a better life and not to infiltrate the US to bomb it. However, this
film is bent on creating fear and by mixing the incursions through the
border and linking it to your Iranian neighbor in the US, a nice
psychological warfare program for the English speaking audience is
created. Thus, anyone else coming from the border or on planes to the
US is fine, but just watch for the Iranians.
The message of the film is that “we” have been tolerant of Iran and
that the US has no will to take action. What needs to be done is to
have crippling sanctions and then military strikes on Iran. This aim
follows the US policy towards Iraq, where from the time of President
Bush Sr. in 1990 to the “Compassionate Conservative” President Bush
Jr., according to UNICEF (United Nations) some estimated 500,000
children died as a result of these “compassionate” sanctions and
“collateral” war, and another estimated 600,000 were killed in the war
that lead to the freedom and democracy in Iraq. This is the
prescription that is laid out at the end of the film by the
talking-heads, and cemented together by the Iranian born Hollywood
actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo. At the end of the film, the pitch is
this: we should not wait for Israel to strike, the US will be blamed
anyway, and so we might as well strike Iran first. This logic would
not be acceptable even from a grade-school child, let alone from a
motley crew of educated talking-heads.
But a little research into the foundations and personages behind the
film points things to a certain direction. The movies if financed by
several organizations, mainly the Clarion Fund, whose president is
Raphael Shore who is also the co-producer of the film. Mr. Shore is a
Canadian-Israeli film producer and Rabbi belonging to a Jewish
Orthodox non-profit organization named Aish HaTorah. This organization
seeks to amplify the danger of Islam to the world. His other
“documentary” masterpieces include Obsession: Radical Islam’s War
Against the West (2005) and The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision
for America (2008).
The director is Alex Traiman who lives in the Israeli West Banks
settlement of Beit El. Kenneth Timmerman whom Simon Wiesenthal
believes is “tracking down the murderers of tomorrow,” is at work in
helping the victims of the September 11 attacks sue the government of
Iran because of its support of al Qaeda, appears at rallies for the
support of the Iranian monarchy, and has written on the plight of
Christians in Iraq, the destruction of Israeli towns during the
Hezbollah rocket attacks, and a novelist is one of the main talking
heads in this “documentary.”
Other talking heads include Arnold Resnicoff who in the film is
identified as the US Military Chaplin, but a quick search identifies
him as conservative Rabbi and military officer as well; Dore Gold who
is the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former
advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; Michael Ledeen, a
board member of the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, founded by Morris
Amitay who was the former Executive Director of American Israel Public
Affairs Committee; and Chet Nagle who is the author of the novel
entitled: Iran Covenant which deals with Iranian attempt to have a
multi-pronged attack on Israel (again, mind you, this is a novel).
Then there are US representatives as well who take part in the
interviews, namely James Woolsey, the former CIA Director; former
Ambassador to the UN John Bolton; NY Representative Eliot Engel, a
vocal supporter of Israel, condemning Palestinian rocket attacks by
Hammas and sponsoring the resolution in the Congress that Jerusalem
should be the undivided capital of Israel; Nevada Representative
Shelly Berkley who according to the Natasha Mozgovaya’s Israeli
Newspaper Haaretz had said, “Berkley, a Jewish politician well-known
for her support of Israel, backed the Israeli operation in Gaza during
December and January, and even told Haaretz that Israel may have been
too tolerant (earlier),” among other talking heads in the film.
There are also scholars such as Bernard Lewis whose politics is clear
and has significantly changed since 1967. More intriguing is Clare
Lopez, of the Center for Security Policy, and who believes that
President Obama’s administration has been infiltrated by Islamists
(Vali Nasr) and their supporters and that such organizations as NIAC
and its President Trita Parsi (a Zoroastrian) are lobbyists for the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Her repeated showings jives well with her
general paranoia that the US is being attacked from all directions,
all the way to the US government. Simply put, no Iranian and certainly
no Muslim born person should have any contact with the US government.
Lastly, there are few Iranian figures that are used, or I should say,
were bought to bring the native element into the picture. Richard
Perle’s Iranian sidekick, Amir Fakhravar, the leader of the rarely
heard Independent Student Movement - who was much publicized through
his contacts with Perle (Neocon theorist who pushed for attacks on
Iraq). He is included in the film entitled: The Case for War: In
Defense of Freedom; Mandana Zand Ervin, the President of the dubious
organization called the Alliance of Iranian Women who has written an
article objecting the award of the Noble Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi,
the first Iranian, and Iranian woman to get such honor, in 2003 (how
ironic is this!); Mohsen Sazgara, former member of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard, then turned Green (supporter of the democracy
movement in Iran), and now in his third metamorphosis, as a
conservative talking head.
Finally, there is Shohreh Aghdashloo, who has achieved stardom in
Hollywood and the US by playing such inspiring roles as a depressed,
suicidal racist female Iranian (House of Sand and Fog), an Iranian
woman being stoned (The Stoning Soraya), funded by Christian
right-wing zealots, and as an Iranian female terrorist (TV series 24),
certainly none of these roles can be claimed to provide a positive
image of Iranian women and Iranians in general. I am not sure whether
to congratulate her for getting these parts or sigh in providing
cinematic stereotyping of Iranians as monsters and demons. She may
have become a star in Hollywood, but she is no star for me, who never
misses an opportunity to poison what the American audience gets to see
from her about Iran and Iranians. In the early 20th Century starting
with D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, African-Americans were
portrayed as slaves, criminals and brutal rapists, until Sydney
Poitier objected this typecasting and played in such films as Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night in the 1960s. He
could have played the docile or mad or villainous African-American and
get paid for it, but his consciousness would not allow it. He and
others changed the image of African-Americans in Hollywood and
gradually in the US. Ms. Aghdashloo unfortunately lacks such
consciousness and has become the actress in a host of negative roles
about Iranians in Hollywood, and who narrates this “documentary.”
All of these people were brought together to make a propaganda film to
instill fear into the hearts and minds of Americans that Iran and
Iranians are coming to get them from Mexico, on cargo ships, with
rockets and nuclear bombs. The message is to bomb Iran before they
bomb “us,” or more correctly, “Israel.” There is a clear and
overwhelming right-wing Israeli or pro-Israeli agenda and mission
behind this film with its message. No matter how one feels about the
current government in Iran, with its abuse of human rights and other
evil that is doing upon its people, the inclusion of some facts with
more lies and fantastic stories bound together, only serves the
interest of Israel and no one else. The Middle East did not become
violent and war-ridden in 1979 with the Iranian revolution, but that
was only the symptom of the problems created by European and American
imperialism in the past two centuries.
Touraj Daryaee is Professor of History at University of California, Irvine
He can be reached at:
tdaryaee@yahoo.com.