Britney Spears vs. Islamists

US News & World Report has an interesting piece about how Britney Spears and Enrique Iglesias are the darlings of Radio Farda (Radio Tomorrow) audience, a new US-gov't-backed AM radio station being beamed into Iran.

Goes the account:

Farda offers a round-the-clock diet of pop music sprinkled with hourly 12-minute newscasts and two half-hour daily programs of news analysis. The broadcast hopes to attract 20 percent of all Iranians?up from the roughly 2 percent who tuned in to [its talk-heavy predecessor]

If Britney-style pop helps bring down the mullahs, it won't be the first time such pop–derided as so much pap by most Western critics–struck a blow against political repression. Reason's Charles Paul Freund praised vulgarity a year ago in an article that remains as relevant as ever.