Laying the Groundwork on Iran?

By now, regular readers of the Drudge Report have become accustomed to his out-of-context headlines. But even good ol' Matt didn't have to expend much yellow-journalistic effort on his " Iran president warns of 'explosion' " link.

Read the story, though, and it becomes pretty clear the "explosion" in question is a metaphorical one. Reminds me of the oft'-published and repeated "quote" from President Ahmedinejad that Israel should be "wiped off the map." But did he really say that? Obviously he didn't say it in English, and a strong case has been made that this is an inaccurate translation of what he actually said in Farsi--a language in which this idiomatic expression does not seem to exist.

Regardless of the translation, though, Ahmadinejad's statement clearly was an expression of hostility towards Israel. So what does it matter what he actually said?

Well, "wiped off the map" dovetails with the "Iranian nuclear crisis" in a way that "eliminated from the page of history" (which he seems to have actually said, in a reference to time rather than place) does not.

Which, in turn, reminds me of the "story" originally reported in Canada's National Post that the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to wear identifying labels on their clothing. The only problem with this story is that it turned out not to be true--the link is to the Free Republic blog because the National Post has retracted the story and removed it from their website.

A lot of people heard denunciations of this new "law" from public figures; how many of these same people have heard that it was not true? Interesting, isn't it, how it fits into the White House view of Ahmadinejad as the new Adolph Hitler? Interesting, too, how "information" about the alleged law came from Iranian exiles. Hmmm...misinformation supplied by exiles from a country whose first three letters are "I-R-A"...where have I heard that one before?

Which, in turn, reminds me of the "story" (sorry--no link...this was from the pre-dawn of the Internet) from the Persian Gulf War (aka, Iraq War I) about premature Kuwaiti babies in a maternity ward being torn from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers, another story that turned out not to be true.

Ahmadinejad is clearly a bad guy, who seems to want nuclear weapons, and who clearly does not wish either the U.S. or Israel well. His Holocaust denial is repugnant. So why would anyone gild the lily by trying to make him seem worse than he is? Presumably for the same reason that the Kuwaiti government, after Iraq invaded in 1990, hired the PR firm Hill and Knowlton (and if you follow this link, you gotta read the last paragraph) to help drum up American support for war with Iraq: You can be a bad guy, and you can wish the U.S. and its allies harm, but that alone doesn't necessarily mean that the U.S. public will support a war against you.

Which, in turn, reminds me of Colin Powell's presentation before the U.N....but that's another subject for another day.

Update: ...so further reseach indicates that I am not the first to make these connections. Hats off to The X Spot for this excellent piece on selling the Iranian/Iraqi threats...and then there was also this in-depth piece in the Nation.