Thursday, February 17, 2005

Tips on how to liberate Iran!

Sharif N Mafi
snmafi [at] hotmail.com

Seymour Hersh has told us that some GI’s are creeping around the deserts south of the Zahedan preparing for W’s next war. I do not subscribe to the New Yorker but I tend to listen when Mr. Hersh speaks; he seems to know what’s cooking way ahead of time. So I would like to make some suggestions to the GI’s in case they actually do make it to Tehran and decide (God forbid) to ‘obliterate’… oops. sorry. I mean, “liberate” us… Falluja style.

Tehran Traffic – if your Central Intelligence Agency has been telling you that Tehran has a functioning traffic system, well they have been somewhat mendacious again. Over there, not even a Daisy Cutter is going to help you. Just sit down in your Humvee, plug in that iPod 40G and pop in a Prozac… extra strength.

Café Naderi – please….please… please, pay a bit of attention when carpet bombing the city with your “precision’ bombs. We are already shocked and awed by your reelection of ‘W’ last November, so there is no further need to stun us. The only place that truly will be missed if leveled will be our beloved Café Naderi. The waiters are primordial, the food is so-so, and the Turkish coffee is dreadful, but it has a slightly dowdy fin-de-siecle feel to it and is much loved.

The Pollution – those elusive “Five years” the wily Israelis keep saying Iran is from obtaining the bomb started in 1977 and we are apparently still five years away, but do not be disenchanted. The air in Tehran is the true WMD you have been searching for so desperately. Those scheming Eye-rainians have managed to manufacture it right under the nose of IAEA. Put on those chemical warfare jumpsuits you have been gingerly saving since Baghdad, and be sure to wear them as you work your way down to downtown Tehran where the sky has a bluish hue to it.

Body Counts – Never mind them, so long as you reinstall our little silly exiles a-la 1953 Coup style, all will be forgotten. Well at least that’s what they will tell you.

The Current President – I say keep this fellow. After all is said and done: new hospitals, refineries and bridges need to be inaugurated. Red ribbons need to be cut. Foreign diplomats’ credentials need to be accepted in colorful receptions. This chap is a skilled master of ceremonies and not much else (he has had 8 years of practice).

Tehran Drivers – The guy with a beat-up RD trying to squeeze in between your 8x8 light armored vehicles while throwing insults and waving his middle index finger at you is not an insurgent. Trust me. He is just trying to make maximum usage of the road by turning a 3-lane highway into 6 lanes. Blame it on a cultural difference.

Esteghlal Football Club; Feel free, absolutely free, to disband this terror cell. Take naked photos of its players for your viewing pleasures, and Gitmo the managers. As a diehard Persepolis fan, I can see no harm any of it.

P.S. Iranians loathe the Bahraini national football squad and equally abhor the National Geographic Magazine for it’s branding our beloved Gulf as Arabian. So if you could drop a few of your ‘precisions’ on the Bahraini training ground and keep the ban on that inflammatory publication, you will certainly win all the hearts and minds in the streets of Tehran.

In closing, remember that Alexander (no… not Colin Farrell), the Arabs, the Mongols and even the British, did us in a few times here and there along our long treacherous history. But along the way, they all became a bit Iranian themselves. So if many years from now you find yourself a bit superficial, slightly superstitious and a believer of conspiracy theories (commonly involving the British), you will finally realize that the Iranian insurgency is in full swing.