Following are excerpts from an interview with Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh. The Iranian News Channel (IRINN) aired this interview on November 17, 2005
Talebzadeh: After Samuel Huntington's article was published... The American government wanted this article to shape a certain trend. In an interview, Fred Halliday said about Huntington: "I would give Samuel Huntington an F for his article." This article is that superficial. [...]
The most famous symbolic work in this field is Independence Day, which was made prior to the events of 9/11. Imagine: Hollywood makes a film that becomes a blockbuster and the box-office hit of that year. In this film there are aerial attacks on the skyscrapers of Manhattan – the same city where the events of 9/11 took place... The film's escape scene, which takes place in Wall Street, Manhattan, closely resembles the (9/11) footage shown on CNN. Just like... The footage... Even before the event, we were shown footage of it. The famous American director, Robert Altman, said in an interview: "I am sure this 9/11 film was made in advance, and that people saw it in movie theaters before it took place." He was referring to Independence Day.
Before this – 15 or 16 years ago – the film The Man who Saw Tomorrow was made. Orson Wells was the narrator. This film was aired millions of times on TV, and it is still broadcast in many languages. [...] This film is a documentary depicting the end of the world. In this film too, the Twin Towers and the Manhattan skyscrapers are attacked. So that makes twice. Once was 16 years ago... 18... or maybe not... If we say 1980, then it is twenty-something years ago. W were shown this film. Everyone saw the Manhattan skyscrapers being attacked by missiles or flying objects. In this film they had the audacity to say that the attack would be carried out by Muslims – that there would be an attack by apocalyptic Muslims, and that this would be the third anti-Christ. Today, they are afraid to talk this way. They talked like this back then, when many events had not yet occurred.
[...]
The War of the Worlds is Spielberg's most recent work. It is also a blockbuster... A box-office hit... This film is also a metaphor. It doesn't explicitly say Islam and Muslims, but the monsters that attack planet Earth are, in fact, Muslims. This is their ideology... They have come from another planet...They are alien... In Independence Day they came from the sky, while in The War of the Worlds they came from beneath the ground. They've always been here among us, but we never saw them. They were beneath the ground and suddenly emerged, and they have extraordinary strength.