War Propaganda

The crowd that wants a military confrontation with Iran is putting its media machine into high gear. Matthew Yglesias, noting that the New York Post is pushing the debunked Iranian Jewish dress story, while highlighting Jim Henley's obvious explanation and additional sleuthwork:

"They made it (a certain Iranian Cabinet official) up. Taheri and The Post ran a provably false report, on their own initiative or at the behest of some publicity-shy agency of some government or other, played in as inflammatory way as possible. Why? So that months from now, someone hearing about plans to bomb Iran, or seeing footage of bombing on TV, will say to themselves, 'Didn’t I read that Iran was going to round up all the Jews and make them wear yellow stars like the Nazis? Something like that. Well, good riddance.' All the story had to do was live long enough to get into circulation."

Now, via Ha'aretz, I see that the Post is also raising the spectre of Hizbullah sleeper cells in New York City. Hizbullah, of course, is a Shi'ite militant organization supported by Iran, though as the Ha'aretz article notes, they do not plan to defend Iran from an American attack. Expect us to get more of these stories in the coming months.