"The Russians Are Coming" (1966) --- perhaps Reuters could update it with some Iranian accents?
We began yesterday's LiveBlog with Foreign Diversions. Today we start it with some Foreign Silliness.
On Tuesday, when we posted the comment by Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahedi, "The US pursues the policy of provoking conflicts among countries and unleashing terror and crises all over the world, while Iran’s foreign policy is based on peace building experience," we did not so to endorse it as fact. On the other hand, we did not do so to imply that Washington and Tehran were on the verge of war.
Reuters, however, is willing to take the propaganda of the Iranian military and run with it. Yesterday the State news agency IRNA featured some chest-thumping by the head of Tehran's navy, Read Admiral Habibollah Sayyari: "Like the arrogant powers that are present near our marine borders, we will also have a powerful presence close to American marine borders."
Rather than note that this is about the 343rd time in recent memory that the Islamic Republic's commanders have put out a declaration or staged a military parade or warned of the "enemy menace", rather than providing any domestic context such as the Revolutionary Guards' rejection this week of a "military hotline" between Washington and Tehran --- in part a slap at President Ahmadinejad's willingness to consider the idea --- rather than reflecting on its own sentence, "Sayyari gave no details of when such a deployment could happen or the number or type of vessels to be used", Reuters pronounces:
Iran raised the prospect on Tuesday of sending military ships close to the United States' Atlantic coast, in what would be a major escalation of tensions between the long-standing adversaries.
Then the news agency turns other displays into military preparations for conflict --- "[Sayyari's statement] comes a few months after Iran sent warships through the Suez canalIran sent warships through the Suez canal" --- and raises the threat level:
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to stop it getting nuclear weapons....Iran has dismissed the threats, warning that it will respond by hitting U.S. interests in the Gulf and Israel if any such attack happened.
Next week: Reuters remakes "Red Dawn" (1984).