Iran Fumes Over Argo's Oscar Win

Argo's Oscar victory isn't going over well in Iran. The country's leading media sources are slamming the film about an Iran hostage crisis rescue, calling it an "anti-Iran" movie "produced by the Zionist company Warner Bros." Critics were particularly peeved at Michelle Obama's presentation of the award, which Fars News noted as "a rare occasion in Oscar history."

Mehr News took issue with Ben Affleck's comment thanking "our friends in Iran who live under terrible circumstances." "After distorting history, Ben Affleck continues to show a bleak picture of Iran," it said. Added another agency: "It seems that (culture official) Javad Shamghadri was not able to use his lobby to prevent an anti-Iran movie from winning." It's all a far cry from last year, when Iran saw the homegrown A Separation win Best Foreign Film, the Washington Post notes. Shamghadri recently said he'd helped secure that victory, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's backing. (More Iran stories.)