IRIB2 is reporting proudly today that Iran is on the verge of becoming the world's eighth nation to master the complex technology of cloning sheep. The report included video of laboratories with their miscroscopes and culture dishes, and Iranian scientists speaking with satisfaction about the approaching achievement. Video was also shown of a small group of sheep, each of which was said to be carrying a cloned embryo.

I am reminded of the crowds of people who have been mustered into the streets of Iran time and again over the last 27 years to demonstrate in favor of whatever the government of the Islamic Republic wants to show that the people of Iran care about. The latest example of this was the huge demonstration marches staged throughout Iran on the anniversary of the revolution, 22 Bahman [11 February].

On this important anniversary thousands of people chanted carefully scripted political slogans, which some of them later repeated verbatim in individual street interviews. The most commonly used of these slogans was the hypnotic and rhythmic incantation, energy-ye haste'I : haq-e mosalAM-e mast (nuclear energy is our indisputable right). Later, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi and other officials made public statements to the effect that the strong desire for this energy expressed by the Iranian people on 22 Bahman puts the government in a position where it cannot back down without going against the 'will' of the people.

These demonstrators, used so effectively for international and domestic propaganda, were another kind of cloned sheep. In a country with high unemployment and a population that is easily manipulated by peer pressure (Iranians are tribalistic wherever you find them), it doesn't take much to get people to leave their homes and repeat the phrases blared at them through bullhorns. A free bus ride, a small stipend for the day and a chance to get together with friends and break the monotony of what is obviously a harsh day-to-day existence, is enough to get the beleagured Iranian masses out for the endorsement of just about any message.

I know that some of them really do hate America when they chant "death to America," but recent visitors to Iran have reported that the Iranians they met were often very taken with American culture and individual Americans; yet these same people were out marching and parroting slogans with everybody else when instructed to do so by the master cloners. Compared to its practiced mastery of population control with lock-step ideological conformity, the IRI's little sheep cloning lab is not much to talk about.