Middle East Focus: Iranian Disinformation Games: on Winning Middle East Elections……

Arabia Deserta

Iranian Disinformation Games: on Winning Middle East Elections……

Walking on water

“Reports about the detention of opposition leaders by the Iranian government are false and have been fabricated and released by the members of the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in a move to stir unrests in Iran, reliable sources said Tuesday. Jodashodegan website, a website affiliated to the defected members of the MKO, quoted sources privy to MKO headquarters in Paris as saying that the reports have been fabricated by the MKO's intelligence agents who have infiltrated into the overseas branch of the opposition movement led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The Karroubi and Mousavi-led unrests originally started after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected as the next president of the country with over 62% percent of the votes cast in Iran's 10th presidential election.……” Fars News (Iran).

This report is confusing, or is made to be. Everybody outside Iran reports that Mousavi and Karroubi (and perhaps even Waldo) have been removed to an undisclosed location. Some mention a prison on the outskirts of Tehran (not the notorious Evin). Most likely it is a deliberately confusing bit of media spin by the regime.
Interesting this reminder by Fars News that Ahmadinejad won ‘only’ 62% of the vote, officially. This man is truly modest, not ambitious enough (well, we knew that from his “Good Will” attire, especially ‘the jacket’, so un-yuppy-like). Arab dictators from Hosni Mubarak to Ben Ali usually won by around 90% and up, and they dressed the part. The Saudis usually win by over 100%, but that is only because they don’t bother with such silly things like paper ballots. Besides, these guys also dress much better: wouldn’t be surprised if they had on silk undies (no, not that type). The Bahrain oligarchy always managed to have their allies win a majority of seats, even though most of the people strongly support the opposition, quite a feat, no? But then they also managed to amass huge petroleum-style personal fortunes from a relatively poor country, no mean feat either. Qaddafi never bothered because his was a Jamahiriyya nation led by the masses of asses, so he saw no need to get his hands dirty in silly plebeian things like elections (dungeons and cells are decidedly un-plebeian, as any Middle East potentate will tell you).
Ah, those were the days of popular consensus, when you could get it without even asking the people for it. Many still do.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com