Iranian ice cream store sets up in Baghdad
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Eating ice cream at Ice Pack in Baghdad (Photo: Liz Sly- Washington Post)
An ice cream parlor franchise is opening a store near the Green Zone in Baghdad. But the franchise is neither Iraqi or American, it’s Iranian. Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to The Washington Post’s Baghdad Bureau Chief Liz Sly. Download MP3
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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. Residents of Baghdad are in for a treat, literally. An ice cream franchise is going to open a branch next month inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. Now you might think that’s a pretty simple good news story for Iraq, but almost nothing is simple in Iraq. There are geopolitical overtones to this new ice cream parlor. You see, it’s part of an Iranian chain of ice cream shops, and next month’s store opening will make a statement about the balance of power in Iraq. Liz Sly wrote the story in yesterday’s Washington Post; she is in Baghdad. We know temperatures can soar there, so ice cream, we’re guessing, is a hot commodity, but is it a barometer of the balance of power there?
Liz Sly: Yes, it very much is. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable for an Iranian outlet to open inside the Green Zone, but the Americans handed over control of the area to Iraqis last year and now anybody can go there and I think it’s very telling that you’ve actually got some Iranian outlets and Iranian franchise opening there where no American outlets or no American brand names have tried to go into Iraq at all yet.
Lisa Mullins: And it is very significant that this happens to be an Iranian chain of ice cream shops. To what extent is Iran making significant business overtures in Iraq, and to what extent are they being successful, even, even as in the case here at the expense, perhaps, of an American ice cream store?
Liz Sly: Well, Iran is right next door to Iraq so obviously that gives them a huge competitive advantage over the US, they do at least $4 billion worth of trade every year with Iraq, most of that is Iranian exports which are flooding into Iraq at the moment. You’ve got a lot of Iranian farm produce, vegetables, livestock, that kind of thing, flooding into Iraq, often at the expense of, well, of local Iraqi producers.
Lisa Mullins: And so if we are looking at this as kind of a political story, um, the Iranian ice cream shops, opening up in Iraq, I wonder if the average patron of these shops, especially when this one opens in the Green Zone, will see this as something political, or, um, they’re in it for a good ice cream cone?
Liz Sly: Well, I think they’ll probably get in it for a taste of ice cream. This shop doesn’t actually sell cones; it’s a sort of cups of ice cream, mostly topped with lots of whipped cream. They do have a branch in Baghdad that’s been open for well over a year and it’s quite a kind of spiffy place, it’s got spiffy red stools and brightly painted cups of ice cream all over the walls, and they do have a specialty which they call a Multi-Mix, and it’s kind of different flavors of ice cream, mostly chocolate as far as I could tell, piled with masses of whipped cream and lumps of fruit and, yes, as far as I can tell from talking with Iraqi s, they’re not that concerned about whether it’s Iranian, American or whatever. They were shut out of the world for years under the sanctions, and they’ve had a lot of violence which has kept people out, and they just want people to come and do business in Iraq.
Lisa Mullins: So where does leave something like the Freedom Restaurant, this is a restaurant in the Green Zone, you know what’s happening to that?
Liz Sly: Yes, the Freedom Restaurant was opened by an Iraqi who loved America and was very happy that the Americans had come into the country. He named it Freedom Restaurant after the invasion, after Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it was for a long time the only place where many Americans could get a taste of the local cuisine, cause they were cooped up inside the Green Zone so they would go to this restaurant and eat Iraqi food. But these days there are many fewer Americans in the Green Zone. You mostly see Iraqis in the restaurants, and it’s definitely a shadow of its former self.
Lisa Mullins: Liz Sly, Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, speaking to us from Baghdad, Iraq. Liz, thanks.
Liz Sly: Thank you very much.
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