Fiction fuels Iranian unrest

Where's Baghdad Bob when you need him?

Not since Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi information minister, who made public statements during the American invasion of Baghdad in 2003 saying there were no U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital and that Americans were committing suicide by the hundreds at the city gates, have we witnessed such spin. In his last public appearance, he insisted that the Americans "are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender; it is they who will surrender."

Recent statements by one diplomat and clerics in Iran following the shooting death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan have a similar tone.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei alleged during his Friday sermon on June 26 that Agha-Soltan was killed by her fellow protesters in order to "raise propaganda against the system."

Not to be outdone, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, Iran's ambassador to Mexico, suggested in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the CIA could have been involved in the killing of Agha-Soltan since the bullet "that was found in her head was not a bullet you could find in Iran."

He went on to say, "If the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the elements of the government, then choosing a girl would be something good for them because it would have much higher impact."

CIA spokesman George Little offered this terse and direct response: "Any suggestion that the CIA was responsible for the death of this young woman is wrong, absurd and offensive."

Agha-Soltan, whose death was captured on amateur video and posted online, has become the iconic victim of the Iranian government crackdown following Iranian resistance to the government's official election results. While it is understandable that Iranian government officials and clerics want to put the best face possible on the contested election results and Agha-Soltan's death, they need to understand that seeing is believing and that in the age of cell phones, the Internet and Twitter, government propaganda has the same shelf life as potato salad on the Fourth of July.

Now, Iranian officials contend that a full 10 percent of presidential election returns have been recounted. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was again declared the winner.

Some experts say it is possible Ahmadinejad did win the election, but it is doubtful that he won with 63 percent of the vote. Perhaps more incredible is that a partial recount could be conducted in a matter of days in an election in which 70 percent of some 46 million eligible voters cast ballots. That means more than 3 million paper ballots were recounted in a matter of days. That's incredible, considering it took more than six months to determine who Minnesotans had elected to the U.S. Senate last November. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Al Franken the winner on Tuesday.

Given these events, it's not surprising that there is a crisis of confidence in Iran's religious and political leaders. They have responded to the technology-fueled demonstrations in a 20th century manner — more propaganda, threats and brute force. If there's any upside to these events, it's that none of these tactics will continue to be effective in a world that is increasingly connected by technology and among a generation that knows how to use these tools in their pursuit of justice and liberty.