The Islamic Republic Has Failed in the Soft War

Roozonline - Just a few days after the leader of Iran reiterated the need for attention to what he called “cultural invasion”, a number of right-wing hardline principlists have responded by saying the Islamic republic has failed in the soft war.

Hamid-Reza Moghadamfar, the cultural-social deputy of the Revolutionary Guards corps told Mehr news agency that the country’s activities in the cultural realm were reactive. “The lack of properly understanding the conditions and developments in the cultural domain and the belated grasp of cultural issues means not sensing the ‘conditions of war’ and the “merciless attack of the enemy on the principles and values of the beliefs and ideals in all aspects of culture to change the views, thoughts and behavior of our Islamic society may be the first reasons for this reactive manner. Indifference, welcoming the instruments that transmit Western culture – whose signs can be seen in Western lifestyle – and ultimately the dominant view that cultural opening without strengthening efforts to absorb cultural elements domestically, are among the reasons that cause a reactive attitude.”

He continued, “In a soft war, even though plenty of resources, budget and potentials were thrown in we accomplished less than what was expected in great and continuous victories. Most of our resources and cultural units operate in isolation and creates redundancies.”

Since ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks to the members of the supreme cultural revolution were published last week, principlists have been commenting on his message.

In his remarks to council members ayatollah Khamenei called for more attention to “cultural invasion” and said that an “aggressive” proactive response – versus a reactive response – needed to be pursued, and then qualified it by saying that “thought and wisdom” needed to be exercised in each situation. According to him, cultural invasion was “real” and added that he had mentioned this years before as well, and now the issue has real manifestations.

Khamenei said that the “hundreds” of media around the world existed for influencing the mind and behavior of the Iranian nation and these had to be confronted. He singled out the state-run national radio and television network, and the ministry of Islamic guidance to have the heaviest duty in the response.

Iran’s Jahan News, which is closely tied to hardline Ali Reza Zakani, wrote, “Today, each person is the target of invasion and war, unlike the time when capturing territory through physical war was the goal.”

Since the leader’s remarks, state agents have become more active in arresting individuals working in IT and music. Officials of the Islamic republic in recent years have become very active in promoting their views through cyber space. They use the term “officers of the soft war” for those involved in such activities. There had been reports in the past that an activist in this real received 70,000 Rials for posting a comment on line. These activists came into being after the disputed 2009 election and their mission was to defend the Islamic republic.

These individuals work under the cyber army of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and their job is to post comments, have a presence in the electronic social media and write on blogs; producing pro-Islamic republic material.

But their birth also brought forth criticism, particularly from some hardline principlists who accused the originators of the force to have “stupid thesis” and predicted their work to be useless. Some critics have argued that the amount of money spent on this was a complete waste making the three billion Toman embezzlement case look minuscule.

Hossein Hamedani, a Guard commander has recently said that “officers of the cyber war would be soon launching their cultural attack; we have added two cyber war centers in Tehran.” He had also claimed that the Basij cyber council had trained more than 1,500 cyber warriors.