Iran color-coded religious badges story 'untrue'

The Canadian Press reports that the National Post, a conservative newspaper in Canada, announced Wednesday that the story, which stirred memories of the Holocaust, was wrong.

The Press also reports that the Iranian government summoned the Canadian ambassador to Tehran Wednesday to deal with the fallout of remarks made by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he had based on the National Post story. Mr. Harper had said that such a dress code would remind people of Nazi Germany.

Iranian legislators denied any such provision existed in a bill to encourage Islamic dress. A copy of the draft law obtained by the Associated Press made no mention of religious minorities or any requirement of special attire for them.

"We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story," Douglas Kelly, editor-in-chief of the National Post, wrote in a Page 2 column. Mr. Kelly said the story was based on a column by Amir Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, and two expatriate Iranians living in Canada. "We should have pushed the sources we did have for more corroboration of the information they were giving us," Mr. Kelly said.

The New York Post also ran the story over the weekend, under the full-page headline "Fourth Reich." The Associated Press reports that the original story created an international uproar.

The United States, which is locked in a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, criticized the bill. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human rights group, had sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him to investigate, according to the National Post.

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The Australian reported that Iran's only Jewish MP, Maurice Motammed, called the original story " a complete fabrication."

Mr. Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.

MPs representing Iran's Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian minorities sit on all parliamentary committees, particularly the cultural one, he said. "This is an insult to the Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran," he said.

Jim Lobe of the progressive Inter Press Service follows the trajectory of the piece, and how a false story made its way into some of the leading conservative papers in Canada and the United States.

Juan Cole, president of the US Middle East Studies Association (MESA), described the Taheri article and its appearance first in Canada's Post as "typical of black psychological operations campaigns", particularly in its origin in an "out-of-the-way newspaper that is then picked up by the mainstream press" - in this case, the Jerusalem Post and the New York Post. A former US intelligence official described the article's relatively obscure provenance as a "real sign of [a] disinformation operation".

The Jewish Week of New York reports on how a " flawed confirmation" from Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, to an editor at the National Post led to the story being published.

How did it happen? Looking back, one can see that with the confrontation between Iran and the Bush administration escalating over the nuclear issue, frequent outrageous statements against Israel and Jews issued by Iran's president, and the daily drumbeat in the media shaping public opinion as tensions build, the setting was ripe for running with a story that seemed to confirm an Iranian government following a Nazi script.

Some feared a replay of the kind of mis- or dis-information that primed Americans for war with Iraq. Others noted that the National Post was owned by the Asper brothers, who are known for their conservative and pro-Israel stands. "You can't have a war without a good disinformation campaign," opined Mathew Yglesias, of the liberal American Prospect Magazine.

In her blog, azerbic, Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star looks at the public relations firm Benador Associates, of which Mr. Taheri is a member. The Jewish Week also describes the firm as "a boutique firm specializing in promoting neoconservative figures such as Taheri, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer and others who supported the Iraq war and 'regime change' in Iran now."

Meanwhile, in another story with Holocaust overtones, Germany is facing an Iranian problem of its own.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad loves soccer, and says he might come with his country's team to Germany for the World Cup. Iran is one of 32 nations, including the US, that has qualified for this year's tournament, the biggest sporting event in the world. The Boston Globe reported Monday that the possibility that Mr. Ahmadinejad may attend has some German officials in an uproar, especially since Iran will play its first game in Nuremburg, "where Adolf Hitler set the stage for the Holocaust with massive Nazi rallies and passage of the Nuremberg laws, which stripped citizenship from German Jews." The Iranian president has denounced the Holocaust and regularly attacks Israel's right to exist.

Some German leaders and editorialists have demanded that the government ban the Iranian leader. But Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers so far have taken the position that Ahmadinejad cannot be turned away if he arrives with his country's official sports delegation, even though his presence would surely trigger international outrage and protests from Israel.

"He would be allowed," said Interior Ministry spokesman Christian Guenther Sachs. "Since he is head of state with a team in the World Cup, we would not be in a position to prevent him from coming." That's a far cry from saying Ahmadinejad is welcome.

A visit would put Germany in a no-win position. On the one hand, if the Iranian president visits, German officials feel they would have to "scold" him for his views, considering many of those views would be illegal in Germany. The US would also put Germany under pressure to say something.

On the other hand, Germany is loath to tamper with its "fine-tuned relations with the Islamic world," and would have to accord Ahmadinejad all the flourishes as a visiting head of state. Not to mention the oil question.

...Germany would plainly prefer not to have to ruffle a leader who sits on some of the world's richest oil and natural gas fields -- deposits that may prove vital to Europe's energy future. There's talk of building pipelines from Iran to Europe. Moreover, Iran is an important market for Germany, which sells some $5.6 billion worth of automobiles, electronics, and other goods to the country. So, very few German leaders want to forbid Ahmadinejad from coming before he even announces any plans for a soccer jaunt.

Also...
• Bogus Iran story in keeping with Next Hitler��� framework (Alternet.org)
• Islamic charity target of anti-terror raids (Guardian)
• Iran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program (Washington Post)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan .