Kamal Ghorui
The tensions between the US and Iran have taken a digital turn. The war of words is no longer limited to official press conferences and speeches; it has spilled onto the social media, where Iranian embassies around the world are taking potshots at the comments made by US President Donald Trump. In one of the responses, the Iranian Embassy in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, used a classic 90s computer game to ‘mock’ Trump’s efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz.
What happened
In recent days, Iranian embassy accounts across the globe have launched a coordinated wave of sharply worded online attacks. These are designed to mock US President Trump’s language used in one of this posts on Truth Social. Arguably, the one of most viral examples came from the Iranian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. The embassy posted a satirical video aimed directly at making fun of Trump’s efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The video overlays gameplay from the classic Microsoft Windows game, Minesweeper, onto a satellite map of the waterway, which is a highly contested and critical global shipping route. As the video plays, viewers watch repeated “mine” explosions go off across the grid in the Strait. The video features sarcastic text praising Trump’s attempts as “commendable.”
What is Minesweeper game
If you owned a computer in the 1990s or early 2000s, you will surely remember this classic game. Minesweeper is a single-player puzzle game that comes pre-installed on almost every Microsoft Windows computer. The goal of the game board is a grid of blank gray squares, and hidden underneath some of those squares are “mines” (bombs). The goal is to click and clear every safe square on the board without accidentally clicking on a mine.When players click on a safe square, it reveals a number that tells them exactly how many hidden bombs are touching that specific square. By using logic and these number clues, you have to deduce where the bombs are hidden and avoid them. If you click on a square that hides a mine, the bomb explodes, the game is over, and you lose immediately.
Why Iran has used Minesweeper
The reason to use Minesweeper to bring humour and mocking serves a clear political purpose. Iran has announced that it has installed mines in the Strait of Hormuz as a way to stop ships and tankers from passing through without a green light from the Iranian authorities. Minesweeper essentially implies that any US navigation through the waters is as risky as clicking a bomb in the game.
