Iran's Toxic Propaganda Machine

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 17, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

            Beating the war drums, the Iranian government continues its pernicious propaganda campaign, blaming the U.S. for the July 15 double-suicide blasts that killed 28 and injured 306 at the Zahedan Mosque.  Iranian authorities know that the Pakistan-based Sunni group Jundollah avenged the June hangings of its leader Abdulmalik Rigi and his younger brother Abdulhamid, captured in Pakistan and extradited to Iran in 2008.  Pointing fingers at the U.S. and Britain serves Iran’s propaganda machine, hell-bent on brainwashing the population.  Warning of “fallout,” Iranian authorities linked the U.S. to the Sunni insurgent group.  “Jundollah has been supported by America for its terrorist act in the past . . . America will have to await the fallout of such criminal and savage measures,” said Massoud Jazayeri, deputy head of Iran’s Republican Guard, hinting at some consequences.

            Iran knows that the U.S. has battled Sunni insurgents for years, especially Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda attack of Sept. 11.  Telling the Iranian people that the U.S. was behind the Jundollah attacks directs Iranian hatred toward the U.S., not its own government for its failed economic and social policies.  When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory and stole the June 14, 2009 election, reformers rioted around the country.  Opposition candidate Mir-Hossain Mousavi led nationwide protests until the government cracked down, arresting, trying and liquidating untold numbers of pro-reform protestors.  Blaming the U.S. gives Iran deceptive cover from its atrocious human rights abuses, where any dissent is met with brutal repression.  Despite rejoicing on Sept. 11, Ahamadinejad knows that the U.S. has been at war with thugs and outlaws from Sunni Isalm, especially al-Qaeda.

           Iran’s own internal dissent stems from the mullahs’ intolerance of any religion or political group that doesn’t further its grip on power.  Sunni rebel groups in Iran, like today’s Iraq, face unrelenting discrimination and hostility.  Jundollah acknowledges its attacks on the Sunni mosque were retaliation for the June executions of Jundollah’s leaders.  Iranian authorities, while blaming the U.S., admit that Jundollah has ties to al-Qaeda, and archenemy of the U.S.  While Iran was fingering the U.S. in the Sunni mosque bombing, President Barack Obama strongly condemned the attacks.  “The murder of innocent civilians in their place of worship is an intolerable offense, and those who carried it out must be held accountable,” Obama said in an official statement.  Whatever issues stand between Tehran and Washington, the two countries agree on the crackdown of Sunni terrorists.

            Iran’s latest shenanigans blaming the U.S. for the recent Shiite bombing reveals the desperate propaganda war to keep the Islamic republic intact.  Iranians with any connection to the outside world must be either liquidated or brainwashed, erasing history, and, most certainly, obliterating reality that a dangerous and corrupt regime has hijacked the Iranian people.  Any minority group has no prayer in today’s Iran, driven by an insane need for power.  Jundollah is just one among many other dissident groups, unwilling to let the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei control every facet of Iranian society.  At loggerheads over its nuclear enrichment program, Iran resorts to only taking cheap shots at the U.S. government.  Keeping its people paranoid and misinformed is the only way to prevent Iran’s protest movement from eventually toppling the current mafia-like mullah-based government.

            Iran’s Shiite government is aligned closely with Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki, coddling thugs like Moqtada al-Sadr whose al-Mahdi army massacred 1,350 U.S. troops in the bloody Battled of Fallujah, Nov. 7, 2004 to Dec. 13, 2004.  Al-Maliki and Ahamadinejad are on the same page unifying the Persian Empire, despite Iraq’s phony support of the U.S. mission.  Iran has nothing but bad things to say about the U.S., fearing a fledgling Democracy movement could eventually topple the Ayatollah’s regime.  Thursday’s bombing occurred in the Sistan-Baluchesian region bordering Sunni-dominated Pakisatan.  Iran blames outside forces for its recent suicide blast.  Ahamadinejad has warned the U.S. about endless waves of Iranian suicide bombers, should the U.S. or  Israel attack Iran’s nuclear program.  Iran knows that the U.S. doesn’t sponsor or condone suicide bombings.

            U.S. officials must confront Iran’s toxic propaganda machine, busy fingering the U.S. for the recent suicide mosque bombing.  Ahmadinejad and Khomenei know that the real battle is won or lost on the propaganda front.  Blaming the U.S. for the mosque bombing panders to the Arab street, where telling any lie about the U.S. accomplishes the mission.  More blood-and-treasure wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan make dealing with a far more dangerous Iran more difficult.  Iran has already arrested 40 individuals “who wanted to create instability” in Zahedan, whose real identities may never be known.  Wholesale arrests and liquidations prevent the mullahs from revealing to the world the true identities of Iran’s enemies.  Killing the messenger gives the Iranian government the perfect excuse to not identify the homegrown Iranian dissidents responsible for the twin suicide-blasts.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.