Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING (see also Public Diplomacy)
Iran's Airwave assult by Seth Cropsey 
IRAN'S AIRWAVE ASSAULT By SETH CROPSEY New York Post online, June 30, 2004 IRAN'S government broadcasts on short-wave radio in about 30 lan guages. It operates four 24/7 TV chan nels - one in Arabic to Iraq, a second in Arabic for Lebanon, a third in mostly local languages throughout Central Asia and a fourth in Persian for a global audience. U.S. International Broadcasting, by contrast, has just one 24/7 TV station: the Arabic-language news and information channel Al-hurra. Iran targets audiences not only in its neighborhood, but in Europe and America as well. At the same time that the Iranian regime transmits to other countries, it works tirelessly to prevent its own people from listening to other international broadcasters in the Persian language. The mullahs understand the benefits of offering ideas to others, and the potentially high cost of allowing their own subjects the same access. The Islamic regime began its international broadcasting in southern Lebanon. As the founder of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 1980s, Iran financed the terrorist organization's radio program and its TV channel, al-Manar, in the late '90s. The broadcasting initiatives were all part of Iran's effort to radicalize the Islamic world. Hezbollah's successful experience in Lebanon (where - unpunished for the murder of more than 200 Marines in 1983 - it remains a potent force today) encouraged Iran's ruling mullahs to apply similar techniques in the post-Saddam Iraq. With the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran immediately launched a 24/7 Arabic TV program Al-Alam ("The World") in Iraq. Al-Alam provides Iraqis with information on the "occupation" and the "occupation" forces. A steady diet of propaganda attacks U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq for much that ails the Arab world, and claims that Saddam's rule was preferable. With Iranian government support, Al-Alam has had the opportunity to broadcast interviews with clear and focused purposes. For example, on May 4 - as Fallujah was erupting, and just before Muqtada al-Sadr launched his own uprising - it aired comments from Sadr's mentor, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri. A reclusive Iraqi religious figure who has lived in Iran since 1973, he told Iraqis that the occupation forces were responsible for the blood that had been shed in Iraq by Saddam's regime as well as by the "occupiers." The mullahs have combined their broadcasts to other countries with a vigorous effort to jam the signals of international broadcasts to Iran. Consistent with the well-worn path of modern dictatorships, Iran's jamming and broadcasting policy complement the regime's longstanding effort to eliminate any semblance of a free press inside the country. An August 2000 attempt to amend the press law, for instance, was quashed with a warning directly from the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In a letter read aloud to the parliament, he said: "Should the enemies of Islam, the revolution and the Islamic system take over or infiltrate the press, a great danger would threaten the security, unity and the faith of the people and, therefore, I cannot allow myself and other officials to keep quiet in respect of this crucial issue." Diligent in their effort to caulk any seams that could allow unwanted ideas in, Iran's rulers also forbid Iranian scholars and activists from giving interviews to Persian-speaking media outside the country. For example, the Voice of America's Persian Service has been prevented from interviews in Persian with Iranians visiting abroad on several occasions. The ruling clerics possess a sophisticated understanding of their vulnerabilities. Broadcasting as an instrument of policy took off with force after Hitler came to power in 1933, and the Nazis' foreign radio service metastasized from two hours a day to nearly 120. Dictators from Hitler to Stalin and his successors have always placed great emphasis on controlling and directing communications. Radio - and its modern successor means of communication - offer un-elected rulers power over their own populations' minds, as well as influence with credulous foreign audiences. In the absence of electoral majorities, such control is critical to the appearance of legitimacy. Iran's Islamic dictators are no different. Their large investment in 24/7 international TV channels and professional production values represents a careful effort to advance the radical ideology of clerical rule, and protect it against the consequences to the mullahs of ideas like self-government, equal rights and separation of church and state. The democratic world's lesser emphasis on international communications also reflects some of our fundamental principles: reliance upon a privately owned independent press as the instrument for conveying the information free peoples need to decide their future, and a healthy suspicion of government involvement in the media. One result: The Voice of America's Persian-language service broadcasts just a half-hour a day of TV news to Iran. Is this enough for what confronts us today? As the large question of whether and how democracy takes root in the Islamic Middle East hangs in the balance, the practical question remains. Is America's minimalist approach to offering democratic ideas the best way to answer the more visible and audible presence of Iran's international broadcasts as well as the equally invidious - albeit by different means - spread of radical ideologies like Wahabism? Seth Cropsey is director of the U.S. government's International Broadcasting Bureau |