Iran to its nuclear workers: Take a break, it’s Christmas

Talks between Iran and six world powers over implementation of a recent nuclear deal will take a break until after Christmas, the Iranian negotiating team said Sunday night, after four days of negotiations… The immediate suspension of the talks was decided upon in a telephone call between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. — The Times of Israel, December 22, 2013.

To: All employees
From: The office of the director
December 24, 2013.

To our valuable nuclear scientists, engineers, and all other staff,

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As you know, we have for some time been engaged in discussions with the international powers, including the conspirators of Washington, to ensure completion of our nuclear program.

Under the inspired leadership of our Foreign Minister, my colleague, the esteemed Mohammad Javad Zarif, acting on the authority of the Supreme Leader, this engagement has underlined and secured our natural and legal right to maintain our uranium enrichment facilities and other vital elements of our legitimate program.

Furthermore, in their skilled adherence to our patriotic ambitions and imperatives, our negotiators excluded from all international deliberation many of the critical military facilities and entities at which some of you are employed, and at which you are advancing programs whose specific details it would be unhelpful to detail here but which are vital to the defense of our proud nation and the global furtherance of its holy goals.

Outwitting the leaden-footed emissaries of the corrupted West, our negotiators simultaneously and heroically secured the gradual removal of the immoral economic restrictions that have been imposed on our brave citizens, measures that created untenable suffering, had no legal basis, and were engineered by the sinister criminals of the Zionist entity.

Strikingly, this dismantling of the economic pressures has been made known internationally and is coming to pass even though the so-called “interim” agreement on all these matters — so widely celebrated internationally — has not been finalized. Therefore the minor obligations to which we have ostensibly committed ourselves, and which you can be assured will have no significant impact on our essential labors, have yet to take effect.

Nonetheless, despite this moment of great victory, while the path to the completion of our glorious program has now been cleared, and although we are free to pursue it in the certainty that those unjustifiable constraints imposed on our hard-working populace will now be replaced by a revival of international cooperation with us, I hereby issue the following orders:

All workers at the praised Arak heavy water facility are to cease all activity immediately.

All workers at the vital enrichment facilities, including but not limited to our Natanz and Fordo centers, are to cease all activity immediately. This cessation extends to the heroic innovators who have been working steadfastly to improve the performance and sophistication of our blessed centrifuges, and to develop ever-more refined designs and models of these holy tools.

All workers at the Parchin testing and manufacturing facility, even though its activities and those of all of our military facilities fall beyond the terms of the agreements tentatively reached with the international powers, are to cease all activity immediately. This cessation extends to all associated activities, designed as you know to enable the maximal future utilization of our nuclear program to ensure the achievement of our praiseworthy goals and needs at home and overseas.

I am, of course, cognizant that these orders are both bemusing and unprecedented. But in issuing them today I act, it need hardly be stated, on the authority of our respected President and our beloved, admired and wise Supreme Leader. Sometimes, their strategies are kept secret, in the wider interests of our magnificent nation. On this occasion, however, I am authorized to provide the explanation for this unprecedented cessation of our heroic nuclear activity: It’s Christmas time.

We all deserve a break. If the negotiators are having one, so should you. The infidels aren’t working, so neither should we! The nuclear program can wait a little! What’s the hurry?!

Let me conclude by wishing you, valued members of our peace-loving Islamic army, a happy, healthy, and above all restful holiday season,

Ali Akbar Salehi,
Director,
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran

(Author’s note: This article is a work of satire. The genuine news report at the top of the article, by contrast, is a case of farce.)