The Iranian Gameplaying Towards the West

 Every so often, Iran's government will really do things that shows the rest of the world they are only interested in playing games with the West.

The most recent "game played" is the arrival of two hollywood stars,  Annette  Benning and Alfre Woodard, which met and conferred with Iran's famous woman actress, Fatemah Motamed, to promote acting through a seminar. 

The official spin from Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his spokesman was that both US actresses and others in Hollywood should first apologize for two US distributed movies, 300 and The Wrestler, which depict the Iranian culture in bad light, before any meetings occur.

The movie 300, is based on a true event and battle in 480 B.C. between 300 Spartans and a huge Iranian Army. The battle is known as, Thermopylae. The Spartans held off the Iranians at a mountain pass for three days in Greece. The Iranians were defeated and as was typcial for the time, ruthless, flamboyant and decadent. In The Wrestler, the story is about an aging wrestler past his prime and for one last time, tries to regain former glory. Well, heck, in the match his opponent is The Ayatollah, a real nasty dude who quickly tries to choke his opponent with the Iranian flag. Before it happens, the pole the flag is on is ripped from his hands and tossed into a crowd.

Neither movie showed in Iran. Hmmm, wonder why?

So the game Iran tried to play here was to cordially invite the US Hollywood crowd, their arrival in Iran could never have occurred without the approval of the government and Ahmadinejad in the first place. Then, once they are in the public media, they demand an aopolgy for two movies never shown in the country because they found them "insulting". Neither actresses had anything to do with the films and neither apologized.

When none came, the original reason why the US actresses arrived continued on without further interference with the government: numerous seminars about acting and Hollywood.

It is this kind of high level action that makes other countries simply not trust Iran. Now, US intelligence confirms that Iran probably does have enough nuclear material to make an atomic bomb but putting it onto a rocket is presenting a continuing problem for them, so the world is safe for a little while longer.

How reassuring.............