Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Maybe mineral water is counterrevolutionary

Amid what the media are still describing as an invasion of the UK Embassy in Tehran by "students", a cleric chants slogans while a goon puzzles over a bottle of Italian mineral water; the original photo caption suggests that he may have suspected it contained alcohol, which would be a strange way to store booze inside an embassy, although stranger things have happened.

More seriously, it's a bit strange that the "students" singled out the UK for enhanced protests given that lots of countries have sanctions against Iran; apparently additional sanctions by the UK against the Iranian Central Bank were the trigger.  They must treasure their ability to conduct monetary policy.  Yet these same "radical" students don't seem at all worked up about the atrocities of their client state, Syria.  In short, we have a carefully channeled "spontaneous" protest against an easy target of the Iranian dictatorship desperate for a distraction from how its Syrian entanglement gets messier and messier.  The "Arab Street" moved to Persia.

Photo: Vahid Salemi

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