We write:

The film opens with a history lesson that begins in 1978 with the first signs of the widespread unrest that would eventually topple the Shah. Iran’s despotic dictator is presented [...]]]> Ali and I have a post up on Tehran Bureau in which we review the Clarion Fund‘s latest film, “Iranium.”

We write:

The film opens with a history lesson that begins in 1978 with the first signs of the widespread unrest that would eventually topple the Shah. Iran’s despotic dictator is presented as “a long-time ally of the United States,” as the film’s narrator, Iranian actor Shoreh Aghdashloo, explains.

Then comes the Islamic Revolution, and the film places the blame squarely on the fecklessness of President Jimmy Carter.

“The fact that Jimmy Carter did not support the Shah in his time of difficulties actually signaled to the Iranian people that the Shah’s rule was over,” says Harold Rhode, a disciple of Bernard Lewis (who also appears in the film) and a former Pentagon analyst involved in Douglas Feith and his Office of Special Plans’ activities building a public case for war with Iraq.

Rhode’s comment hints at themes that keep reemerging throughout the documentary: The belief that Middle Easterners respond only to shows of strength, and that, while Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have been weak on Iran, Ronald Reagan’s supposed strength was respected in the region (with the exception, of course, of his withdrawal from Lebanon after the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks there were bombed in 1983).

The film pushes the neoconservative meme that Iranian leadership is irrational and can’t be trusted with nuclear technology.

“Americans and Europeans are really uncomfortable with the idea of holy war and mass murder for religious reasons,” Cliff May says in the film. “Because they can’t imagine that for themselves, they also can’t imagine that others behave that way. But this is a failure of imagination.” Bernard Lewis compares the inability to deter a nuclear Iran with Iran’s use of “martyrs” in the Iran-Iraq War, in which young Iranians were sent across Iraqi minefields.

But both these generalizations miss a key point: Iran’s leaders, despite a willingness to sacrifice citizens, have demonstrated that they are concerned primarily with themselves. Iran’s use of a nuclear weapon would almost certainly imperil the regime’s survival.

And the experts interviewed by the Clarion Fund make no secret about where they stand on the “military option.”

Tighter sanctions and increased support for the Green Movement are both endorsed in the section titled “Stopping the Regime,” but Clarion’s experts also favor keeping the “military option” on the table.

“If Israel feels compelled for reasons of self-preservation to mount an attack against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities, the United States will nevertheless be blamed for the Israeli attack and the United States will be drawn into the aftermath of such an attack no matter whether we were part of it at the beginning or not,” explains CSP’s Lopez.

While the film’s justification for military action appears to hinge on Israel’s willingness to launch a unilateral attack, recent comments from former Mossad chief Meir Dagan pushing back the Iranian nuclear clock may pose a challenge to the sense of urgency expressed by Clarion’s experts and the narrative of imminent conflict crafted by the film’s producers.

Iranium fits nicely into Clarion’s oeuvre. Like the producers’ previous movie, it portrays a clash of civilizations, suggests that Muslims value death over life, and portrays irrational hatred toward Israel and anti-Semitism as key to comprehending the anger and frustration voiced by Muslim countries against the United States. While Iranium does little to elaborate on these basic tropes about the Muslim world — in this case, mainly Iran — the formula for the Clarion Fund’s anti-Muslim propaganda is becoming more apparent with each new iteration.

The Clarion Fund appears to have (perhaps mistakenly) uploaded a copy of “Iranium” to the video sharing site Vimeo. The embedded video is below but we imagine that the producers might be taking the video down shortly.

It’s also worth watching the extended interview (hosted on the same account) with the film’s narrator, Shoreh Aghdashloo. Aghdashloo appears to share Frank Gaffney‘s interest in “creeping Shariah” but, despite the repeated (ad nauseum) use of the term, it’s a little unclear how much of a grip she actually has on the current political climate in Iran.

Starting in 2008, we began writing about the films produced and distributed by the mysterious Clarion Fund, as well as questioning the money trail. [...]]]> Salon’s Justin Elliott has new evidence indicating who funded the Clarion Fund’s 2008 distribution of 28-million DVDs of the Islamophobic documentary, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

Starting in 2008, we began writing about the films produced and distributed by the mysterious Clarion Fund, as well as questioning the money trail. A new page on their RadicalIslam.org website offers a revealing insight into the organization’s web of connections in the Islamophobia and neoconservative echo chamber.

The Clarion’s website “About Page” lists the organization’s Advisory Board, composed of some of the most high-profile and established propagators of Islamophobic rhetoric.

It includes:

• Frank Gaffney- A prominent neoconservative who has helped found the Center for Security Policy and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Gaffney is an outspoken advocate of battling  “Islamofascism,” which he says is in a “death struggle with us” and is directly or indirectly supported by China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, and Venezuela.

• Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser- Founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and narrator of the Clarion Fund’s Third Jihad documentary. (Back in 2008, I wrote about the similarities between the Third Jihad and the anti-Semitic trope, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

• Clare M. Lopez- A  Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy and Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee. (Our reporting on the Iran Policy Committee can be found here and here.) The Iran Policy Committee has pushed for greater U.S. engagement with Mujahedin-e Khalq, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

• Daniel Pipes- The Director of Middle East Forum and a well known propagator of Islmophobic rhetoric. Pipes has defended the Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, who has been attacked for his inflammatory comments that include referring to Mohammed as a “devil” and demanding that Dutch Muslims “tear out half of the Koran if they wish to stay in the Netherlands.” Pipes called Wilders “a charismatic, savvy, principled and outspoken leader who has rapidly become the most dynamic force in the Netherlands.”

• Dr. Harold Rhode- A foreign affairs specialist who worked in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. According to a Mother Jones  article by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest, “Rhode worked with [Douglas Feith] to purge career Defense officials who weren’t sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Paul D. Wolfowitz and Feith wanted.” “Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no ‘bartering in the bazaar anymore…. You’re going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.’”

• Ilan Sharon- The Executive Director of Minnesotans Against Terrorism. Clarion describes Sharon as, “A son of Jewish refugees from Libya and Egypt, Sharon lectures frequently on the issue of terrorism, the threat of Radical Islam, and the struggle for Peace in the Middle East. He aided in the production and distribution of Obsession, The Third Jihad, and Iranium.”

• Sarah Stern- The Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET). In September, 2008,  EMET’s spokesperson confirmed to IPS that the organization organized and oversaw the distribution of  Obsession DVDs.

The Clarion Fund’s advisory board represents a whose-who of the Islamophobia industry and the neoconservative far-right.

Clarion writes that their latest film, Iranium, will:

…[T]target influential U.S. interest groups and policy makers while remaining both straightforward and down-to-earth.  After viewing the film, the general public will be able to understand the critical nature of the threats and encourage a movement aimed at preventing the further advancement of the Iranian regime and its nuclear arsenal.

Given its list of advisers with their long history of propagating Islamophobic rhetoric and advocating for a militant U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, it remains to be seen how the Clarion Fund can present a balanced viewpoint on the complexities of U.S.-Iran relations.