Iran’s ministries of Intelligence and Interior last week announced the taking into custody ‎of “terrorists” responsible for the bombing act that took place some week earlier in the ‎city of Shiraz, while earlier intelligence officials had been stressing that the explosion ‎was not the result of a bombing.‎

It is of course understandable why security officials of a country would withhold critical ‎information, or postpone its announcement, in an effort to continue their work to capture ‎those they seek. But is it also natural for senior security officials to present intelligence ‎through official statements which it believes are fake? One must bear in mind that the ‎dissemination of fake news about the causes of the explosion in Shiraz was not carried ‎out merely by security officials, but mostly through official statements of the National ‎Security Council of Iran.‎

Yes, security agencies at different times across the globe do tell lies and so Iranian ‎security officials have not done anything wildly out of the ordinary when they lied about ‎the Shiraz bombing. But the difference between their behavior and the customary norms ‎of intelligence-security agencies is that in other countries those agencies at least strive to ‎pretend that what they publish are true facts or that they do not intend to be misleading or ‎present untruthful facts. In other words they have accepted the principle that they should ‎not be seen as organizations that intentionally present lies. This is why after they publish ‎false information, they attribute this either to not having sufficient information at the ‎time, making a mistake or simply resort to public silence. But to knowingly present false ‎facts and then justify it on grounds of expediency is a major faux pas that even the most ‎arrogant security agencies do not easy resort to.‎

What makes this issue even more serious in Iran’s security apparatus is the fact it is done ‎over and over again. This practice is so notorious that it would not be an exaggeration to ‎say that all instances of “intelligence dissemination” exercised by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s ‎administration have been followed by such justifications rather than expressions of error ‎or ignorance of full facts.‎

We still remember that following the February 2006 bombing that took place in the city ‎of Ahvaz in oil-rich Khuzestan province bordering Iraq, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s minister of ‎interior immediately held a press conference in which he declared that the perpetrators of ‎the bombing were associated with the UK. But when London asked for evidence, nothing ‎was presented and even Iran’s minister of intelligence would not confirm this claim made ‎by the minister of interior when confronted by reporters. All he could say was, “Detailed ‎information will be made available when the case goes to court.” With the passage of ‎time, however, nothing has been presented till today in support of the minister’s claim of ‎British involvement.‎

An even more startling instance was when 15 British navies were detained by the IRGC ‎because they had strayed into Iran’s territorial waters and the Iranian military-security ‎apparatus expressly labeled the navies as “military spies”. Fast forward a few days and ‎these very “spies” were given an official departure by no senior Iranian official than the ‎President himself and his foreign minister and, after receiving gifts from their “host” ‎country, were sent to their home country. So once again the public mind did not receive a ‎definitive conclusion as to whether the accusation by Iranian authorities that the 15 ‎detained navies were in fact spies or not was true or not. After all, where else in the world ‎do they release foreign “spies” after a few days of detention and free them as if they were ‎national heroes?‎

Another sensational event was when senior security officials of the Ahmadinejad ‎Administration publicly attacked Hossein Mousavian, former Iranian nuclear negotiator, ‎who was accused of engaging in “nuclear espionage” for the British government by the ‎minister of intelligence and the president himself. In that instance, it was the Iranian ‎judiciary that officially acquitted defendant Mousavian. When the President and his ‎powerful public prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi protested to the acquittal, the accused was ‎tried for a second time, and once again he was acquitted of his charges. Following these ‎events, the minister of intelligence simply explained that the acquittal demonstrated that ‎there was a difference of view between the court and the minister of intelligence… ‎Similar instances abound during Mr. Ahmadinejad’s term.‎

So while presenting false information is not a rare phenomena for security agencies ‎around the world, evidence indicates that organized presentation of false facts by senior ‎intelligence officials of Iran has reached new heights where even the country’s Security ‎Council disseminates fake information after which the ministers of intelligence and the ‎interior proudly declare that expediency necessitated the presentation of disinformation. ‎This is a concerning development.‎

Do our intelligence and security agencies realize that what a damaging message they are ‎sending to the world when they deem it expedient to disseminate lies at the highest levels ‎‎(the country’s Security Council) and through the highest official channels (official ‎statements)?‎

How is a regime that is going through a sensitive period of self-created and perpetual ‎conflict with world powers going to cope with questionable and critical security issues? ‎Let me be more clear: How is the current regime going to defend itself from the constant ‎accusations of supporting terrorism, of security-military interference in the affairs of ‎regional countries, and, of pursing a non-transparent nuclear project when it itself ‎announces to the world that it would lie through its most formal and official mouthpieces ‎whenever it deems it expedient?‎