Iranian film depicts defeat of US

A FULL-LENGTH animated film depicting an armed confrontation between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the US Navy is to open in Iranian cinemas soon, amid rising tensions over President Donald Trump’s hardening rhetoric against Tehran.

Farhad Azima, director of The Battle of Persian Gulf II, called it a remarkable coincidence that the release of the film – four years in the making – coincided with a “warmongering” president in the White House.

“I hope that the film shows Trump how American soldiers will face a hu- miliating defeat if they attack Iran,” Azima said by phone from Mashhad, in eastern Iran.

The 88-minute animation opens with the US Army attacking an Iranian nuclear reactor, and the US Navy in the Gulf hitting strategic locations across the county.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful branch of the Iranian military, retaliates with full force, raining ballistic missiles on the US warships.

“They all sink and the film ends as the American ships have turned into an aquarium for fishes at the bottom of the sea,” Azima said.

Trump has said he will not be as kind as his predecessor Barack Obama was to Iran, warning that military options are not off the table in response to Tehran.

He has called into doubt Western powers’ nuclear deal with Iran and, responding to an IRGC missile test last month, imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities, some of them linked to the Guards.

The main Iranian commander in the film has been intentionally depicted as Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC commander who is overseeing Iran’s military operations in Syria and Iraq against Islamist militants. – Reuters