It was supposed to be a routine remake of scores of reportages offered by the official TV each year. The formula used is simple: A concert hall filled with a handpicked audience of carefully screened audience chanting “God is Great, Hail to Supreme Leader!” Then the “Supreme Leader” enters, accompanied by his military and clerical entourage, to sit on high chair on an elevated platform facing the audience below from a distance of 10 meters.
As the cameras roll, the “Supreme Leader” repeats his shop-worn monologue about humbling the American “Great Satan” and wiping the “Zionist entity” from the face of the earth. He invites the young audience to prepare for martyrdom as a short-cut to a place in heaven in the next world. At the end of the ceremony, everyone shouts “Hail to the Chief” while the “Supreme Leader” exits the stage wearing a triumphal smile.
