Israel Matzav: Big Brother is watching you in Iran

Big Brother is watching you in Iran

The New York Times reports that the Iranian government is using new tactics in a bid to shut down opposition to the current regime.

It is implanting 6,000 Basij militia centers in elementary schools across Iran to promote the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, and it has created a new police unit to sweep the Internet for dissident voices. A company affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards acquired a majority share in the nation’s telecommunications monopoly this year, giving the Guards de facto control of Iran’s land lines, Internet providers and two cellphone companies. And in the spring, the Revolutionary Guards plan to open a news agency with print, photo and television elements.

The government calls it “soft war,” and Iran’s leaders often seem to take it more seriously than a real military confrontation. It is rooted in an old accusation: that Iran’s domestic ills are the result of Western cultural subversion and call for an equally vigorous response. The extent of the new campaign underscores just how badly Iran’s clerical and military elite were shaken by the protests, which set off the worst internal dissent since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Will it work? Some experts don't think so.

“By trying to gain more control of the media, to re-Islamize schools, they think they can make a comeback,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iran expert and professor at Syracuse University. “But the enemy here is Iran’s demographics. The Iranian population is overwhelmingly literate and young, and previous efforts to reinstall orthodoxy have only exacerbated cleavages between citizens and the state.”

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In the same way, the state’s new efforts to inoculate Iranians against dissident ideas in the media may be difficult — or even counterproductive, analysts say. This month a high-ranking official at IRIB, the state broadcaster, seemed to unwittingly concede the point when he announced that 40 percent of Iranians — twice as many as last year — had access to satellite television in their homes.

“The enemy no longer invests in the military to advance their goals,” said the official, Ali Daraei. “Their primary investment is in the media war through satellite channels.”

Here are two bets that are likely safe: First, that the new measures will be backed up by violence and threats to the extent necessary. Second, the Obama administration won't do anything to stop Iran.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Big Brother is watching you in Iran