Amid its saber rattling over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has opened a new front in its confrontation with the West: A renewed crackdown on Barbie dolls and the stores that sell them. Police have been closing dozens of shops for selling the dolls, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported on Friday, according to the Associated Press, and they've confiscated the contraband toys. As The Atlantic Wire's John Hudson tweeted, it's "finally something second-wave feminists and Iranian mullahs can agree on." But only for a hot second: The dolls have been banned in Iran since the mid-1990s because they supposedly promote Western values (feminism among them), and in 2002 Iran introduced alternative dolls, twins named Dara and Sara, "who were designed to promote traditional values with modest clothing and pro-family stories," the AP notes. That's not exactly what feminist Barbie opponents (Lisa Simpson famously among them) had in mind either.

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Adam Martin