NYT misinformation in context

Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei yesterday delivered a televised Newyear address, and according to the summary in Al-Quds al-Arabi, it included this:

In its psychological war, [the West] is trying to intimidate the authorities, and weaken Iranian solidarity. They are trying to spread fear by spreading rumors about the imposition of sanctions, and about the use of force, and they are promoting (or "feeding") divisiveness within Iraq.

On the first point, people should carefully note the New York Times piece by Elaine Sciolino on Tuesday, March 20, which cited anonymous US, European and Iranian sources to the effect Russia told Iran it would withhold fuel from the Bushehr plant unless Iran complied with UN demands about stropping uranium enrichment. The NYT trumpeted this in an editorial on Wednesday as an historic milestone in Russian behavior, but it was denied the same day by Russian foreign minister Lavrof, who said the report was "an indecent attempt to provoke an argument between us and ...Iran", and added there is no connection between fuel for Bushehr and the UN matter. And Lavrof said in the Russian parliament that his government will not support "excessive" (or "extreme") sanctions against Iran. Which does make the NYT report look less like a bona fide news report and more like part of the pattern of intimidation Khamenei was referring to. (This astute blogger smelled a rat in the NYT piece immediately, suspecting the "sources" were in the US and British delegations to the IAEA, which had been used in similar ways as "propaganda distribution points" in the runup to the 2003 invasion).

On the second point, please recall the report in a Russian paper that was picked up by the Novosti news agency, according to which the Russians had told Iran the US was going to attack its nuclear installations on April 6. A commenter here noted that the Russian paper in question is not of the highest reputation in that country, which I guess would put it about on a par with the New York Times. And certainly there are various factors which would suggest this was another part of an attempted-intimidation strategy, rather than a bona fide warning, given the timing. (US troops in Iraq are exposed to retaliation; political talks are under way in a number of forums, not just the UN; and so on).

And Khamenei mentions a third point, in connection with this, which is the accusation that the US is contributing to divisions in Iraq. In this connection, recall that a Russian military think-tank official was quoted in a Novosti interview earlier this week accusing the American special forces of fomenting Shiite-Sunni violence in Iraq. This was part of his summary of the Iraq situation on the occasion of the start of the fifth year of the Iraq war. In the context of the Khamenei speech, this is brought up as part of the pattern of threats and intimidation directed at Iran.

The Khamenei speech yesterday focused on the the need for firmness and determination in meeting whatever the West plans to do: Full military retaliation in the event of a military attack; and scrapping the international nuclear agreements if the West ignores the Iranian rights that are part of those agreements. I have focused on the specific point about a pattern of intimidation because I think it helps clear up ambiguity in recent reports, and particularly because it puts the NYT misinformation piece into the right context.

(The IRNA summary of the speech is here).