by Warren L. Nelson
The hardline daily Kayhan, one of the two most extreme rightwing newspapers in the country, has warned Iranians to beware of McDon-ald’s because it is an American spy center—just like Starbucks.
The wariness about McDon-ald’s—and presumably master spy Ronald McDonald—was prompted in July when the McDonald’s website posted a website seeking applications from people in Iran who would like to be franchisees.
Yet, a month later, Kayhan is still acting like those shifty Americans were just using a ploy to fool Iranians and really want to sneak quarter-pounders into the Islamic Republic.
Mine you, Kayhan did not express any concern about giant international oil firms poking their noses into every corner of Iran. But the Golden Arches is another matter indeed. “It could be an espionage base,” Kayhan warned its readers recently. No, not “could be,” make that “is.”
“McDonald’s, along with Starbucks, is a full-fledged Zionist entity,” reports Kayhan, “and with over 500 active franchises around the world, it is in practice a very sophisticated monitor of social developments around the globe which through very advanced behavior and feedback analysis is at the least an active instrument that gauges sub-conscious opinion.”
Just a minute! Kayhan’s fact-checker has slipped up big time. “500 active franchises?”—ridiculous. McDonald’s has more than 35,000 franchises around the world “gauging sub-conscious opinion,” whatever in the world that is.
Kayhan continues edifying us: “The fast-food restaurant has provided the means for the movement of many professional spies in all European and Asian countries on the pretext of providing training and management to its global managers, franchises, cooks and other staff. It also provides the means to bring in workers, staff and franchise owners to the US and Germany on the excuse of providing training, without raising any sensitivities of the security agencies of the host countries. Through these techniques, it recruits naive and vulnerable targets to advance the objectives of its bosses.”
Kayhan continues, “As the use of the Internet expands through smart microphones and applications, and the provision of hotspots, McDonald’s and many other chain outlets affiliated with the imperialist camp, have in reality eliminated the need to spend huge sums of money to send surveillance drones over megacities by providing free Internet services through wi-fi to its customers and encouraging them to use their phones at their locations. It then downloads information belonging to its customers, and even passersby, to a central location without the knowledge of its franchise staff.
“So we must be very careful that a McDonald’s restaurant is not simply a pleasant deli whose management has been relegated to some interested person. It has the potential to be turned into a center for espionage. In practice, it unknowingly becomes a cover for these kinds of operations.”
Kayhan is not the sole purveyor of such kookiness. The former head of state broadcasting, Ezzatollah Zarghami, tells us in a recent Instagram message that McDonald’s is assigned to change Iranians into little Americans: “McDonald’s and Pepsi Cola are two political symbols of America. For decades, they have advanced the groundwork for changing the political culture of their places of operation in favor of the United States.
“Today, in Iran as in other countries, many similar and even better fast-food restaurants are available. We must be careful so that Americans don’t replace the sanctions with sandwiches. Honestly, is an omelet with tomatoes and barbari bread replaceable?”
Marg bar Ronald McDon-ald!