No shortage of demand in Iran for U.S. flags to destroy

KHOMEIN, Iran — Near the hometown of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, workers at a small Iranian factory diligently add all 50 stars and 13 red-and-white bars to what are supposed to be U.S. flags, and carefully imprint the blue Star of David on Israeli ones.

That’s even as all their work is destined to go up in flames.

The company Diba Parcham Khomein serves as a major producer for the American and Israeli flags constantly burned at pro-government rallies in the Islamic Republic. Such flag-burnings are a sign of support for Iran’s embattled clerical rulers and a throwback to the indelible images of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that branded the U.S. Iran’s greatest foe and the “Great Satan.”

Another batch of flags is being prepared for the 41st anniversary of the Iranian revolution on Tuesday. The celebrations will take on special symbolic importance amid renewed tensions with Washington after a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, last month.

Yet the factory’s owner, like many middle-class Iranians, holds out hopes for better relations between Tehran and the U.S.

“I hope there is a day that the flags we produce are presented as a gift,” said factory owner Abolfazl Khanjani.

That day, however, has yet to come to Khomein, a city best known as the birthplace of the Islamic Republic’s founder.

The factory itself is in the nearby suburban village of Heshmatieh, where staffers first dye the blue canton containing the 50 white stars of the American flag on linen before dyeing its seven red stripes.

The flags then hang to dry in the factory. The factory adds “Death to Israel,” written in Farsi, on Israeli flags. Iran itself continues to support anti-Israeli militant groups like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in...