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Iran cancels charm offensive, plans cultural purification instead

You’d think Iran would be tired by now of being compared with Nazi Germany by every pundit or public official with a grudge, a poor grasp of history, and a hidden agenda.

It’s not like modern Iran’s ever been an oasis of free thought and democracy, but sometimes it seems as though they’ve got their hands on a copy of “Dangerous Tyrannical States for Dummies” and are working their way through it, chapter by chapter.

The latest troubles come from the country’s Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister, Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi. Sporting the same “eight-day beard topped with a bad toupee” look favoured by his boss, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and sharing some of that man’s own charmingly gregarious take on the modern world, Saffar-Harandi has vowed to cleanse Iran of the creeping, un-Islamic decadence brought by a proliferation of news agencies, films, books, and blogs. “Unfortunately, we witness inappropriate and wicked manifestations in society today,” said Saffar-Harandi in a state radio address quoted by Yahoo! News. “But now, you have my word that we will purify the cultural atmosphere.”

Plans for a series of mass rallies to kick off this new cultural purification campaign have been postponed until Saffar-Harandi can figure out just how one goes about burning a blog.

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