This whole plot is a reference to...

So this immensely powerful empire (Read: America) with an unrivaled military invades a small nation (Read: Iraq) on the pretense that that nation is secretly manufacturing weapons. Then, in the major turn of the film, we discover that this intelligence was false and was deliberately manufactured by someone within the government to justify an invasion that actually serviced their personal motives.

Any of this sound familiar?

How did everyone else miss this?

The climactic confrontation between Dastan and his uncle was such a blatant and biting piece of allegorical social satire that for a minute or so I felt like I was watching an episode of South Park. Datsan (or an angry liberal screenwriter) says, as if addressing George W. Bush himself:

"There are no weapons here uncle and you know it! And the spy [who provided the information] was hired by you to persuade all of us to invade!"


It's at 1:41:40. If you want to, go watch it. It will make you laugh out loud when you see it in this context.

I'm serious, how is it that no one else picked this up?