Iran’s propaganda campaign

Last week, Iran released photographs and video footage of what Tehran said were test-firings of several ballistic missiles. The launches were reported by Iran’s state media to have included Iran’s newly improved Shahab-3 surface-to-surface missile, which, with an extended range of 2,000 kilometers, puts Israel and much of the oil-producing Middle East within Tehran’s crosshairs.

This saber-rattling by Iran, which possesses the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, has sent the price of crude oil shooting up once again after a brief respite. This is precisely the effect that Iran’s belligerent leadership intended to achieve, since the world is more sensitive than ever to soaring oil prices.

By making trouble and getting away with it, Tehran can show that it has improved its bargaining position and might even be allowed to keep its nuclear development program going.

In the process of pushing the world’s buttons, Iran has succeeded in prodding the governments of the United States and Israel to “shout back,” drumming up attention and support for Tehran’s anti-American, anti-Israeli causes.

The trouble is that experts have said that much of the information we have been receiving from Iran has been doctored.

While many experts have yet to make a final determination, it is all but certain that some of the footage shown to the world was old, while part of Iran’s claims are probably even false.

One now-famous photograph issued by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards News Service, which shows four missiles being fired in the desert, has been confirmed to be a doctored version of another photo showing only three missiles being launched.

The image with only three missiles was released by Iranian news services prior to the souped-up photograph sent out by the Revolutionary Guards’ propaganda agency.

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