As it turns out, we don’t need to bomb Iran or impose a blockade in the Persian Gulf to overthrow the mullahcracy in Tehran. All we need, according to the mullahs themselves, is an airlift of Barbie dolls to overthrow the ruling clique and bring a new day of Westernism to the long-oppressed Iranian people. Sensing a massive Mattel conspiracy, the Iranian government threatened a crackdown on the merchants of Barbie-ism:

A top Iranian judiciary official warned Monday against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys.

In the latest salvo in a more than decade-old government campaign against Barbie, Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi said in an official letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi that the doll and other Western toys are a “danger” that need to be stopped.

“The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger,” said the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press. …

“The displays of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter … as well as the irregular importation of unsanctioned computer games and movies are all warning bells to the officials in the cultural arena,” his letter said.

Barbie? Harry Potter? That hardly smacks of Western muscularity. One would suppose that GI Joe would frighten the mullahs more, with or without the Kung-Fu Grip, but of course the military might of the West is only a secondary issue at best. The mullahs fear Barbie’s short skirts and bare midriffs and the unmistakable message of freedom it sends to women forced to cover themselves from head to toe in dark, depressing colors.

Maybe a Barbie-smuggling operation would work. If it doesn’t, perhaps we need to throw the Geneva Convention aside and use the really heavy artillery: Bratz Girls. I’d rather they go to Iran anyway rather than here. All kidding aside, forcing Tehran into issuing proclamations against childrens’ toys could only help expedite the decline of their credibility and remind younger Iranians that the rest of the world has progressed past the 14th century, even if their oppressors have not.