Sala’s Persian wonderland: Reality bites in Tehran

Cecilia Sala, the intrepid Italian journalist who boarded a flight to Tehran with all the enthusiasm of Alice stepping into her Persian Wonderland, is now seeing the Iranian rabbit hole for what it truly is—a dark, damp cell with fewer whimsical creatures and more Revolutionary Guards.

Sala’s Iranian adventure was not the typical tale of starry-eyed, keffiyeh-clad correspondents storming Gaza in solidarity with the local terrorists. No, Sala’s approach was far subtler. Her criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s perennial Voldemort in left-wing circles, rested on the notion that Bibi’s “far-right” extremism had somehow pushed Israel into isolation. After all, she once mused on her podcast that Israel’s isolation was simply Netanyahu’s isolation. A profound observation that might now seem a tad less profound from behind Iranian prison bars.

Before embarking on this enlightening journey, Sala expressed her deep affection for Iran, describing it as the country she “missed the most,” presumably after a Parisian café ran out of oat milk. Reflecting on her time away, Sala noted that Tehran had been bombed by Israeli jets for the first time in history. In her wisdom, she deduced that Netanyahu’s bombast was impeding the winds of Iranian reform –  as if the Ayatollahs were just a nudge away from installing rainbow pedestrian crossings and hosting drag brunches.

Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, Sala declared, was a reformist. The same Pezeshkian who dons the uniform of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) like it’s haute couture, condemned America as “terrorist,” and described shooting down drones as a delightful pastime. In Sala’s world, slipping on an IRGC jacket is merely a quirky fashion statement. Perhaps a “hot girl summer” trend for the reformist-at-heart.

While in Tehran, Sala channeled her inner Jane Austen, podcasting about Iranian patriarchy and interviewing dissident comedians, blissfully unaware that she was dining with Revolutionary Guard grandees like Hossein Kanaani. For nearly half a century, Kanaani helped orchestrate militias across the Middle East—a charming dinner companion if ever there was one.

But Sala’s luck ran out when Tehran police detained her, roughly two days after Italy and the US arrested a pair of Iranian operatives. Coincidence? Hardly. Sala, it seems, stumbled straight into a diplomatic tit-for-tat—a curious byproduct of regimes that consider “press freedom” an oxymoron.

She now has ample time to reflect. Perhaps in solitary confinement, she’ll have a moment of clarity, realizing that “far-right” Netanyahu isn’t tossing journalists into cells, and that the real threat to press freedom does not wear a Likud pin.

This ordeal has all the hallmarks of a cautionary tale for the “useful idiots” (copyright: Bibi) of the West. Like turkeys enthusiastically marching for Thanksgiving, Sala may come to miss Iran a little less after sampling its hospitality. One imagines her sitting on the prison floor, longing for the relative oppression of Tel Aviv’s beachfront cafes.

And if she ever pens a memoir about her stay, it may be: “Eat, Pray, Don’t Leave the Hotel.”