A View from Iran

October 20, 2008 10:36 AM

A view from Iran: Golboo Fiuzi, a young resident of Tehran, talks to fellow Iranian citizens about why they think the US hasn't attacked yet, their political views, opinions about globalization and their lives under UN imposed sanctions.
posted by Surfin' Bird (24 comments total)

Golboo Fiuzi, a young resident of Tehran, talks to fellow Iranian citizens about why they think the US hasn't attacked yet, their political views, opinions about globalization and their lives under UN imposed sanctions masks Iranian state propaganda under the guise of street journalism.

FTFY
posted by Krrrlson at 11:05 AM on October 20, 2008

The fellow that worked with her also has a video up explaining why Iran is the rhinoplasty capital of the world.

And yeah, the video really does feel like propaganda.
posted by chunking express at 11:06 AM on October 20, 2008

This is relevant to the book I am reading.

The man-on-the-street perspective in Tehran seemed a lot more reasonable and though through than what you would get stopping Americans on the street to ask them about a war with Iran.
posted by paisley henosis at 11:08 AM on October 20, 2008

And yeah, the video really does feel like propaganda.

It's the fault of globalization and the West that the country possessing the world's second-largest natural gas reserves position cannot keep the lights on.
posted by Kwantsar at 11:10 AM on October 20, 2008

It's the fault of globalization and the West that the country possessing the world's second-largest natural gas reserves position cannot keep the lights on.

It's tougher to develop your energy infrastructure when sanctions have helped prevent modernization. With new technology, that natural gas you're burning to drive turbines could make y MW at the same cost, instead of just x.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:24 AM on October 20, 2008

If you don't think that Alstom, Siemens, and Finmeccanica are selling turbines to Iran...
posted by Kwantsar at 11:45 AM on October 20, 2008

I can only dream of having Jennifer Lopez shoved down my throat.

Anyway, Global Voices Online does an excellent job documenting what average Iranians are thinking.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:51 AM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

And yeah, the video really does feel like propaganda.

It may very well be propaganda, or it may be that some people actually believe that stuff. What do you think Iranians think when they read LGF?
posted by Pollomacho at 12:09 PM on October 20, 2008

What do you think Iranians think when they read LGF?

"Muhammed, what an asshole!"
posted by DU at 12:15 PM on October 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

"I think it's posturing. Kind of like when we say 'death to America'. It's not a rational thing, just an act we put on for each other."

Yeah, that guy is definitely a mouthpiece for Ahmedinajad. Curses to you, Golboo Fiuzi, and your propaganda disguised as information!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:38 PM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

masks Iranian state propaganda under the guise of street journalism.

Right, because Iranian state propaganda calls the Iranian government a dictatorship. And it's manifestly impossible that actual Iranians would resent the U.S.-led blockade unless paid by their government.

What's wrong with you people?
posted by languagehat at 12:38 PM on October 20, 2008 [5 favorites]

What's wrong with you people?

Take some chill pills dude. Obviously Iran is a big country, with lots of people, and walking around Tehran asking questions you'll be able to assemble a video saying whatever you feel like. It just *feels* like propaganda. I think she could have edited and scripted (her portions) of the video better than she did.
posted by chunking express at 12:57 PM on October 20, 2008

What's wrong with you people?

Can't hear you. Busy singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran".
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:58 PM on October 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

It seems that a great number of reactions to this post have been shaped by propaganda.
posted by stet at 3:43 PM on October 20, 2008

golly. just a short. not a lot to be learned there...

i grew up with a lot of kids whose folks had fled after the shah fell. they had really nice houses and lots of new cars. and they were cute and healthy as you might expect.

the other day this persian lady came in to my shop with her american husband. i was listening to a piece of moroccan pop by this berber guy and she recognized the persian influence in the three count of the beat instantly.

we chatted a lot about iranian poetry and music and history and the word from the street. every now and then her hubby would decide to make a point and would talk loudly and over us to get that point in. i felt like humoring him and the nice iranian lady was married to him so his behavior went uncommented upon.

she hadn't been back to iran since The Fall, but was thinking that things were setttled enough now that she could. the interesting part of the conversation was her insistent need to tell me that iranians don't hate the u.s. and americans as a group; they just want our government to dry up and go away. and on that point we were agreed.

i just wish her husband would have stayed home so we could have had a longer and less invaded chat.
posted by artof.mulata at 4:02 PM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I wonder what their nightly news looks like.
posted by captainsohler at 4:10 PM on October 20, 2008

And it's manifestly impossible that actual Iranians would resent the U.S.-led blockade unless paid by their government.

It's manifestly impossible that actual Iranians have such a perfectly cohesive worldview that blames all their problems on Western "globalization." If you believe this video is an accurate representation of Iranian opinion rather than a carefully manipulated agenda vehicle, you should be asking what's wrong with your own head.
posted by Krrrlson at 11:45 PM on October 20, 2008

The Iranians in Iran that I know blame their problems on (in order):

1) Their government
2) Poor people / rural people with whom Ahmedinijhad is popular (sound familiar to you Americans...?)
3) Arabs
4) The British
5) Arabs
6) Arabs
7) Arabs
8) Arabs
9) The United States
posted by atrazine at 12:10 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

oh, and "1) Their goverment" is a pretty complicated topic because hardliners control the judiciary and the police, but moderates have control and/or influence in local governments in some parts of the country, and the authority of local officials varies with the region and their personal power bases.
posted by atrazine at 12:12 AM on October 21, 2008

Isn't Iran a totalitarian state with secret police keeping an eye out for any manifestations of dissent? That might distort the spectrum of public opinion somewhat.
posted by acb at 4:05 AM on October 21, 2008

“...interesting part of the conversation was her insistent need to tell me that iranians don't hate the u.s. and americans as a group...”

This is why folks in the administration think/thought that in theory an invasion would succeed and this:

“...they just want our government to dry up and go away.”

is one practical reason why it’d fail.

There are practical uses of force. There are. But the method of strategic development has changed.
Among the other practical reasons - there are many - an invasion of Iran would fail, and I’m speaking of what we did in Iraq not something a bit more up to date, is that this administration thinks it’s fighting world war two.

Rummy with the “you go to war with the military you have” and so forth.
Among the several things I agree Clinton did properly was listening to his military advisors who were looking forward. (Oh, I didn’t like ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and a lot of people resigned because of it, but (for those of us who don’t much care about someone’s sexuality) that was just poor policy.)

Industrial wars being a thing of the past, the military was slowly transforming into a more pure outfit - the bottom line being killing people and destroying things.
Certainly the military can perform a variety of functions - but the structure was being tuned. Not in the Balkins of course, but...
Let me back up - there are four (basically) areas of conflict - tactical (guys on the ground), theater (the local area), strategic, and political.
The changes I’m talking about were occuring (some still are) on the strategic level on down.
Politically, Clinton and the UN had the same sort of problem this administration is having in Iraq. Thinking putting armed men in an area magically can achieve something by their simply being there.
That and Clinton’s recreational bombing of Iraq - not a whole lot of practical use of force despite a lot of things getting blowed up real good.

So - we had a finely tuned tactical military, lean, efficient, looking to break stuff - so when we rolled over the Iraqis in 2003 we had a great tactical and theater advantage which - ultimately - amounted to nothing.
The right has a force fetish - let’s just take all that criticsm as read and put it aside.
Liberals however - and I use the term ‘liberal’ purely in it’s social context - were very concerned about the meaning of force.
If force was used legally, morally, it’s ok. If it’s ok, then it will work (the Iraqi’s will see we’re good guys).
That outlook is just as detatched from reality as the guys who jerk off over war porn.

Just because force is applied properly and legally and has a moral foundation does not mean it will be successful.

So again - we win on a tactical level quite easily, and, same deal, our guys mill around being not only hostage or shield for one side or the other, but under the current circumstances mere bag men for the political agenda.

Our military can perform a variety of functions. What this and some other administrations fail to understand is that their effectiveness as a military force is lessened if they are trained otherwise.
This is not to say they themselves are less able combatants, but rather that there’s a gestalt there in terms of training, equipment and mission directive that is not easily changed (old maxium - good generals study tactics, great ones study logistics).
The politicians make the decision to go to war and form the pattern they want to see. Strategy is the expression of those (that) political goal(s). On the tactical and theater level concessions are made to what can be brought to bear in what amount of time and with what resources.

The problem is not forcing the ‘lower’ levels of warfighting to adapt to the political level - but rather - the political level should accept what the theater and tactical level has to offer and from there develop strategy.

Both sides working the middle, sort of thing.

If you try to adapt the tactical level to universally serve the political level you get an army of dogwalkers who exist to please whatever administration is in office rather than warfighters. Which is fine, unless you actually want to use your troops to, y’know, fight a war.
But too often they’re used as a ‘big labor pool of guys we have’ in order to cover some gradiose political agenda instead of recognizing the flaws in that agenda. (At least as it pertains to military operations).

Any force - any pressure - should instead be directed at an opponant’s strategy - NOT their state or people or infrastructure etc. such as it was in industrial wars.
In this day and age it’s quite frankly sloppy. In the case of the Bush administration it was downright negligent of the public trust if not directly criminal.
Sun Tzu - attack the enemy’s strategy, if you can’t do that -disrupt their alliances, if you can’t do that - attack their army.

Setting aside the additional fact that most democracies fight so as to not have too many casualties (hence the popularity of bombing) what political objective would be achieved by knocking over Iran?

...yeah, I don’t know offhand either.

So we then ask: what’s Iran’s strategy and how can we oppose it?
Easy, no?

I’d say the first thing is to recognize - in this age of advanced communication - the people and their utility. After all that’s where legitimacy comes from.
Ergo - we support them, they like us, we win.

What we need then in Iran is not a General Patton but a Lech Walessa.

This barricade crap is old school nonsense. We should be shipping them phones and communications equipment and letting them know we’d back them up against their military (if it went that way) - run interference for them so they can reform their government.

Of course, that’s all predicated on us acting in our own best interests, not oil companies.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:58 AM on October 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

“Just because force is applied properly and legally and has a moral foundation does not mean it will be successful.”

- because it goes without saying that force applied illegally is not legitimate, I didn’t say it.
But just to clarify, no, illegal or immoral force can’t be tolerated by a free society.
...shouldn’t be, anyway.
Even if it is successful (Hitler’s army was superbly trained and led. They had, at the beginning, massive tactical and theater advantages. Hell, their mobility alone...) it shouldn’t be allowed. And indeed - practically speaking, such hubris is typically its own downfall.
Being a supreme bad ass doesn’t mean you can kick the world into the shape you want it to be in, it won’t stay that way when you leave (Alexander comes to mind).
Legitimacy is (ultimately) a practical necessity. But it doesn’t mean it’s the sole necessity nor does it ensure victory.

obvious, but just to be clear
posted by Smedleyman at 7:07 AM on October 21, 2008

I wonder what their nightly news looks like.

This should give you an idea:
(probably the most watched Iranian news report - reporting every night)

http://iransima.ir/FilmDescription.jsp?IDCode=161275&pCode=36&pType=2008-10-20&place=calendar

To watch click on the bottom right button (and you'll probably need IE to watch).
On this website you can watch more of the Iranian television (both live and archived).
posted by clueless22 at 12:02 PM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's manifestly impossible that actual Iranians have such a perfectly cohesive worldview that blames all their problems on Western "globalization."

Is it really? You can say with absolutely certainty that it is "manifestly impossible" for any of about 65 million people to be able to attribute their problems to globalization, because these 65 million people can't have "such a perfectly cohesive worldview"?

What do you actually imagine when you think of Iran? People living in tents, reclining on silk pillows while their camels chew their cud in the sun?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:48 PM on October 21, 2008