Before the bombs

The Bush administration understands very well that before you start a shooting war you have to wage and win a disinformation propaganda war. That was done in the lead up to the debacle in Iraq and it would appear that it's going on again. The blogosphere has been abuzz about this story from Amir Taheri, A colour code for Iran's 'infidels'.

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public.

Well now we learn that report of badges for Jews in Iran is untrue.

Hormoz Ghahremani, a spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, said in an e-mail to the Post yesterday that, “We wish to categorically reject the news item.

“These kinds of slanderous accusations are part of a smear campaign against Iran by vested interests, which needs to be denounced at every step.”

Sam Kermanian, of the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation, said in an interview from Los Angeles that he had contacted members of the Jewish community in Iran — including the lone Jewish member of the Iranian parliament — and they denied any such measure was in place.

This should lead us to ask - who is this Amir Taheri who wrote the original article. Well Taylor Marsh asked the question and found out that -

Now let's talk about Amir Taheri for just a second. It didn't take long to find out he's part of Benador Associates. Guess who's also part of Benador? Charles Krauthammer and many other neocons.

I guess Judy Miller just isn't available anymore.

Update
Juan Cole has some thoughts that are worth a read, Another Fraud on Iran: No Legislation on Dress of Religious Minorities