If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out the “Video Tours of Iran’s Nuclear Facilities” available at the ISISnuclearIran website. I frankly didn’t find them as interesting as the similar in appearance videos of Iranian missile production facilities. Too much waving flag, not enough detail. (Though the ISIS analysis is, of course, always worth reading.) But this brings up an interesting question: what’s going on here? Why are “we” being bombarded by all these interesting videos? There is, of course, a natural tendency to believe that they are intended for “us” in the West and to search for geopolitical reasons for Iran to demonstrate its technological progress. I think this is why the State Department seems to have challenged the veracity of the Iranian nuclear claims. However, a more realistic explanation is local politics: the Iranian presidential elections in June. These videos are pushing national pride and there is an undercurrent of “these indigenous advances did not take place before the current administration” that seems, at least to me, to clearly come across, whether or not its true.