Sweating Out the Truth in Iran
By MAZIAR BAHARI
WORKING as a journalist in Iran embodies the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again without getting any results. That’s how I felt at the height of the conflict in Lebanon, when I asked officials about Iran’s relations with Hezbollah, bearing in mind that posing such questions can be a futile, dangerous and sometimes even lethal exercise.
How was Iran helping Hezbollah? Did Iran really start the war to divert attention from its uranium enrichment program (which it vowed this week to continue)? Was Iran, as Hezbollah’s ally, if not patron, willing to put its money where its mouth was and enter the conflict?
Questions, questions. Of course no one answered.
So as a good Iranian, I indulged in fantasy. Fantasizing has become something of a national sport here. Our president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, predicted that the national soccer team would finish third or fourth in the World Cup. He also thinks we can become a nuclear powerhouse, even though we have a hard time manufacturing safety matches or making light bulbs with life expectancies of more than two weeks. By the way, the soccer team didn’t make it out of the first round.
1 comment:
Well, does aynbody here seriously think that its nice of israel to bomb Lebanon back to stonage (of course I dont believe in the stonage, but some of u do so its a working similtude) ? Come on, Israels claim "we just wanna bring peace and free Lebanon from the mean, mean, bad HizbAllah" is pathetic! Did anybody actually believe that crap? I mean in how far is Lebanon better of now? The country is largely destroyed, people are starving, dying, have now homes and HizbAllah is still there. And beside, whats the problem with having HizbAllah? In how far are they harming the Lebanese people? And in how far did Israel harm the Lebanese people?
If the Lebanese population would have LIKED to be freed from HizbAllah, why didnt they support Israel broadly and joyfully ran into the "save" arms of the Israelis Army? Probably because the women were afraid to be raped and the guys were afraid to be tortured and shot.
Just like Israel does with the Palestinians...
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