To understand Iranian anxieties about Western cultural invasion, one need look no further than Psychological Operations Quarterly, a journal published until recently by the IRGC’s Social-Cultural Directorate. Focusing on the “soft war” waged by various Western entities, the periodical covers such material as supposedly anti-Iranian films (Alexander, The Wrestler, Argo), the relationship between McDonald’s franchises and the fall of the Soviet Union, and the harm done by English-language textbooks to the Iranian mind. Since 1979, in response to such perceived threats, the Islamic Republic has intensified enforcement of morality laws, purged professors from universities,…
