This was doubtless the shortest run a branch of fast food conglomerate KFC has ever had. As a tweet by the Iranian news agency Tasnim reveals, the store in West Tehran closed its doors within 24 hours of opening them, which has to be a record.
So what was the problem? Too much brown in the “gravy”? Too many lumps in the mashed potatoes?
No, it wasn’t the food that led Iranian police to shutter the location the day after it opened. The reason, according to Mashable, was that “the decor too closely resembles the U.S. flag, and its presence ‘can be seen as a part of American influence into Iranian culture.'”
An official notice by Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Mines posted to the front door reads, “The U.S. is one of Iran’s major enemies and this will have grave dangers for the country.”
First branch of #US fast food restaurant @KFC was shut down in #Iran's #Tehran soon after its opening pic.twitter.com/S2QGtypHqI
— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) November 3, 2015
It isn’t immediately clear if the Iranian KFC, which it said was licensed through a KFC-branded chain in Turkey, was an official branch of the American restaurant….
But Ali Fazli, who is identified as Head of the Trade Chamber of Iran by the Iranian News Labor Agency, said the KFC restaurant had “nothing to do” with its American namesake. “No Western fast food has any branches in Iran,” he said.
Hey, no one ever said that Iran and the America would become bosom buddies following the nuclear talks, in which the U.S. got much less than it gave. Well, no one said that in so many words. But throughout the negotiations, Team Obama kept dropping broad hints that a thaw in relations between the two countries would necessarily follow. Instead, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has insisted repeatedly that the U.S. is still the great Satan — an enemy that Iran will “confront with all our power.”
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