IRNA’s Magic

Iranian blogger, Mehrdad Sheibani, Rooz Online:

With less than one week at the helms of Iran’s official news agency IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency), Ahmad Khadem has brought back the “Soviet Union” to its life! In his welcome ceremony, in the presence of the minister of Islamic Guidance Hossein Safar Herandi, the IRNA boss promised that his agency would be turned into the spearhead of fighting cultural imperialism. Two days later, he was on the same plane with president Ahmadinejad heading towards New York. While his promise has not yet been fulfilled, his first dispatch from New York is worth noting. In it he says “Many countries including the Soviet Union, China and India have expressed their opposition to US’s demands” over Iran’s nuclear program. READ MORE

International news agencies of course know where the Soviet Union lies these days and so send a corrected version of the story, while IRNA likes to keep the original source as-is and thus uses the term Soviet Union for Russia in its dispatches. According to international news services, India’s president tells US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his country does not wish Iran to become nuclear. And president Bush announces after meeting with Russia’s Putin that Iran’s case will be referred to the UN Security Council. This is something other major European states have already agreed with. Nothing of the sort in the Iranian media.

While Ahmadinejad was publicizing his wish to share Iran’s nuclear feats with other Islamic countries in an effort to win them over to Iran’s side, the words merely sent more alarms to international circles and Western capitals. Last Thursday’s talks between Iran and the three European powers produced no positive results as proclaimed by the Europeans. London’s Guardian newspaper talks of British plans for a strongly worded resolution against Tehran for submitting the case to the UN Security Council.

While the US and the Europeans continue to say the ball is in Tehran’s court and await an “initiative” by Ahmadinejad, president Bush also continues to talk of the UN Security Council taking up the case. He calls Monday Iran’s last chance to change that from happening. From what Iranian officials have been saying, it appears that they are getting ready to compromise and give in.

Iran’s chairman of the joint chief of staff, general Firuz Abadi declares that Iran’s armed forces and commanders have been ordered to be on alert for any attack on the country. But he also openly says that “Iran wants to be the dominant power in the region”.

Mehrdad Sheibani is a seasoned journalist and commentator living in exile.