Iranian State Department?

byHabib Battah
Oct 4, 2009

For a minute, I thought the world turned upside down: the Iranians are giving a press conference at the U.S. Dept of State?!

Then again, I was watching Lebanese television.

Tehran, it turns out, seems to have modeled its foreign ministry briefing room on that of arch nemesis, Washington.

See Hillary’s briefing room for comparative purposes:

(photo credit: State Department)

During a recent press conference in Tehran, the Iranian spokesman was asked why the Islamic Republic copied America’s propaganda room style, while shunning all other things Western, such as neck ties.

The spokesman smiled and responded: “Of course we did not copy America and its Zionist enterprise. If you look closely you will see that they only have one national flag in their room.”

(photo credit: UPI)

Just kidding, I have no idea what the minister was talking about.. although it probably was America.

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.

1 comment

Jad Aoun says:

Oct 6, 2009 at 2:38 pm

I had the exact same thought this morning when I was watching Al Jazeera.

“Wait a minute, when did he fly to DC?”. Curious to know the rationale behind the move, though.

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