The first casualty of war (Update)

Drudge, it seems, has linked to an obvious disinformation yarn about Iran: Seems the Iranian government passed a new law forcing Jews and Christians to wear identifying insignia. The rightist bloggers have been all over the story.

Obviously, if this fable had any factual basis, we would have heard about it from a government source, or from a media outlet more credible than the National Post of Canada, an ultra-conservative sheet founded by Conrad Black (who was indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald). The reports have been picked up elsewhere -- Newsmax, for example -- but the sourcing seems the same.

Is the assertion true? This news team looked into it:

But independent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, says the report is false.

"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told The New 940 Montreal.

"Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colours. I've checked it with sources both inside Iran and outside."

Even the New York Sun (another rag with a "Black" background) is backing away from this one:

On Friday, the Jewish Community's representative in Iran's parliament, known as the Majlis, Morris Mohtemed spoke with the secretary general of the Iranian American Jewish Federation in Los Angeles, Sam Kermanian, and told him the story reported by the National Post in Canada today was false.

Here's the kicker: The National Post and Newsmax base their tales on reports by Iranian expatriates living in Canada. Now that's solid sourcing. To doubt those expats would be like doubting the word of...oh, I dunno. Achmed Chalabi?

We've seen this sort of thing before. When Reagan tried to drum up support for war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Administration media flacks pushed a fake story of how Ortega's goons had attacked a Synagogue and persecuted Jews. For some reason, America's Bible belters -- most of whom have never attended a seder, and many of whom have a secret (sometimes not-so-secret) gut mistrust of the Jewish people -- always fall for any propaganda claptrap designed to evoke memories of the Holocaust.

Of course, if the neocons get their way, we shall have war with Iran, and that war will soon go nuclear. When mushroom clouds decorate the landsape, Iranian Jews and Christians will find themselves well beyond any sartorial worries.

Update: The National Post has removed the article. I imagine there will be formal retractions tomorrow. Of course, you know how disinfo works: A good lie leaves a stench that lingers long after exposure. In the ramp-up to current debacle in Iraq, we even saw a brief rebirth of the infamous "baby incubator" yarn...