Is our promiscuity thwarting U.S.-Iranian rapprochement?

How much does cultural conflict between the U.S. and Iran get in the way of normalizing relations? Quite a bit, this fellow argues. And the main problem Iranians have with U.S. culture, it would seem, is our different notions of romantic relationships. For example, the Iranian authorities blamed a pornography ring there on “the U.S., Canada and Israel.” And television, too, broadcasts “Hollywood movies, fashion and relations between young men and women, which are symbols of moral corruption in the eyes of the ruling power and its traditional religious supporters.” The upshot:

It is a no-brainer that the conflicts and tensions in the region, from Afghanistan to Lebanon, could not be resolved without close collaboration between the US and Iran. However, given that the Americans’ push for spreading Western values seems an inseparable characteristic of its culture while the Iranian government and its conservative supporters interpret this cultural infiltration as nothing but a plot to softly topple the regime, how could such collaboration ever be shaped?

Although never discussed explicitly, this is one of the main – if not the main – obstacles that divides the two sides and makes peace difficult to attain. The question remains how the US in the President Barack Obama era can conceive assurances to alleviate the Iranian government’s concerns that not only hard but soft toppling is also off the table.

via Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.