Over the last several weeks the Newark (New Jersey) Star-Ledger has featured a series of articles by reporter Nawal Qarooni on everyday life in Iran.  In the latest installment, Qarooni looks at the dating scene in Tehran and Shiraz, two of Iran's major cities.

During three weeks of interviews and visits to cafes, parks, malls and other public places this summer, The Star-Ledger found a culture of dating in Tehran and Shiraz that would have been unheard of just a handful of years ago.

In Tehran, a more modern city of 12 million, couples on dates locked eyes during conversations, sat in restaurant booths so their legs touched and held hands without hurriedly letting go.

In Shiraz, a city of nearly 4 million, couples seemed more reserved, mostly, they said, because they feared running into someone they know. They grazed fingers under the table and quickly met each others' longing looks.

In previous articles, Qarooni has looked at Iranian vacation spots, funeral rituals, attitudes toward America, and the yearning of many Iranian women for smaller noses.  There's more here, here and here.

This is all very enlightening.  But the Star-Ledger is clearly interested in more than  informing its readers about a colorful foreign culture.  In all likelihood, the U.S. will launch a major military action against Iran in the next 12 to 24 months.     In the process, many Iranians will die.  It will much harder to gain the approval of the American people for such an attack if they understand that Iranians are people, too.  People who have love affairs, struggle to make ends meet, worry about their looks, etc.

The Star-Ledger and the rest of the MSM are in a race against time to put a human face on Iran before the U.S. mounts an attack.  The tragedy is that there are indeed many fine people in Iran.  They're not spending their days plotting jihad or building nukes.  In fact, many of them are pro-American, especially the young people.  But perhaps now is not the best time for the media to try building love and understanding between Americans and Iranians. 

In World War II, the U.S. government and most domestic media demonized the enemy, especially the Japanese.  Many of these depictions were downright racist and would never pass muster under current standards of political correctness.  But it's hard to argue with results.  Americans were furious with the Germans and Japanese, and they stayed mad long enough to beat the tar out of them and win. 

Those days are long gone, replaced by multicultural nostrums and non-stop efforts to soothe our passions.  It's hard to see how we'll win the coming conflict with this approach.