Iranian plane at the airport
Today we finally arrived in Africa. From the sky our approach to the West was greeted by unlimited stretches of undulating Sahara sands, and after we started the descent and hit the ground, we saw tall brown bush grass, red earth, palm trees, and… an airplane from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
My family is originally Iranian, and in my entire adult life I have never seen an Iranian airplane, due to the U.S. embargo on Iran since the 1979 Revolution. So it took me aback to have an image of Iran be the first man-made thing I saw upon hitting African soil. This drives home an important trend that remains unknown to most Americans outside of the intelligence community: the influence of countries like Iran and other “enemies” of America, all over Africa. They are making a big effort to win the “hearts and minds” campaign.
Coming home from the airport we saw a small amusement park under construction by the Libyan government's investment agency, and once at home, the TV was switched on to a fast-paced, high-gloss, 24-hour news channel – Al Jazeera in English, featuring the venerable British anchor, David Frost.
But this isn’t what my kids noticed. That’s in the next entry…
(Pictures forthcoming -- I'm having trouble uploading images due to the weaker connection to the internet -- but I'm lucky to have a connection in the home!!)
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