The Times editorialists even cheered as Mousavi turned his back on the last real hope for definitive evidence that might have proved Ahmadinejad's victory was fraudulent. Mousavi rebuffed offers for a partial recount, instead seeking an entirely new election.
Mousavi's position was supported by the New York Times' top brass. "Even a full recount would be suspect," the Times wrote in an editorial entitled "Iran's Nonrepublic." "How could anyone be sure that the ballots were valid?"
But one reason for a recount is that examining ballots can unearth evidence of fraud, especially if ballot-box stuffing was done chaotically or if the tallies were simply fabricated without ballots to support them, as some Western observers have speculated regarding Iran.
Mousavi's unwillingness to exploit the recount opportunity might have left an objective observer with another suspicion: that Mousavi believed he actually did lose and recognized that maintaining the uncertainty was better for him than a conclusive judgment confirming his defeat.
That uncertainty about election fraud was then transformed by the U.S. news media into conventional wisdom accepting the certainty of fraud and indeed has proved valuable for those supporting both internal and external opposition to Ahmadinejad's government.
However, if Iran's election truly was legitimate, then the American news media is helping to create a political climate favoring the removal of a democratically elected government.
A similar situation occurred in Iran in 1953 when the United States and Great Britain opposed Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who was nationalizing Iran's oil resources. The CIA undertook a propaganda campaign to depict Mossadegh as unstable while also passing out millions of dollars to rally big crowds demanding his ouster.
Given that history, it would not be unreasonable for the Iranian government to suspect that the United States, possibly with its UK junior partner and the help of Israeli intelligence, is conducting a new covert operation today.
Prior to the June 12 election in Iran, it was well known and widely reported that President George W. Bush had signed a covert action finding targeting Iran's Islamic government with propaganda and political destabilization.
In the July 7, 2008, New Yorker magazine, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that late the previous year, Congress had agreed to Bush's request for a major escalation in covert operations against Iran to the tune of up to $400 million.
"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," one person familiar with its contents told Hersh. The operation involved "working with opposition groups and passing money," the person said.
Other news organizations reported similar facts, with Bush administration officials even citing the aggressive covert action as one reason why the Israelis should tamp down speculation about launching a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites.
Down the Memory Hole
Yet, when the Mousavi campaign took on the appearance of a "velvet revolution," with Mousavi claiming victory before any ballots were counted and then organizing mass demonstrations when the official vote count went against him, the U.S. press corps mocked any suggestion from Ahmadinejad's government that foreign operatives might have had a hand in the disruptions.
Not to say that Mousavi's campaign definitely was orchestrated from outside Iran nor to suggest that it didn't speak for genuine grievances inside Iran but the U.S. press corps behaved as if it had forgotten its own earlier reporting about the CIA covert operation.
Truly objective journalism at least might have included some historical facts about the three chief opposition leaders and their longstanding (often secret) ties to the West.
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