With Iran's economy struggling under US and European sanctions, US President Barack Obama 鈥� who championed the sanctions' implementation 鈥� has been none too popular in Tehran.
Given that, the editors of Iran's semi-official news agency Fars must have been quite pleased when in late September, they found a news story in English reporting that 77 percent of rural white Americans would "rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than" Obama. Indeed, whole hog 鈥� and without attribution 鈥� on its website.
It was, of course, .
Upon realizing their error, the Fars editors withdrew the article, replacing it with " for that mistake."
The unnamed Fars editor-in-chief also noted, perhaps optimistically, that "Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen."
