Iran Refuses U.S. Pandemic Assistance Citing Chinese Conspiracy Theory

In this picture released by the office of the Iranian supreme leader on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to his supporters during his visit to Mashhad, 900 km (540 miles) east of Tehran, Iran. Khamenei is saying his country will realize its regional intentions while the United States will fail to achieve its purposes. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

The leader of a nation that believes the whole world is conspiring against Islam won’t accept American assistance during the cornavirus pandemic because they believe a Chinese conspiracy theory that the virus was created by the U.S. military.

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said some pretty loony things about the United States, Israel, and Christians but this tops them all.

Politico:

“I do not know how real this accusation is but when it exists, who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?” Khamenei said. “Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more.”

He also alleged without offering any evidence that the virus “is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians which they have obtained through different means.”

“You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person,” he said.

This, from the leader of a nation that may or may not already possess a nuclear bomb.

“There is no scientific proof offered anywhere in the world to support Khamenei’s comments,” opined Politico. But when did that ever stop Iranian nutcases who arrested pigeons for spying for Israel? They also arrested lizards for spying on a uranium mine.

This is a nation that doesn’t deserve help. Their incompetence, stupidity, paranoia, and religious fanaticism has made Iran the second most infected nation on earth next to China. If there was a way we could help the Iranian people and bypass the government, the religious police, and the Revolutionary Guards, we might be able to help. But the government can’t be trusted to deliver aid to those who need it the most.

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Incredibly, after almost 1700 deaths, Iran is still covering up the size and scope of the problem. And they’re threatening journalists who get too nosy.

Committee to Protect Journalists:

“Journalists were ordered to only announce the same official numbers that the Ministry of Health announces on daily basis. Some of my colleagues in Kurdistan and Isfahan were able to collect anecdotal numbers which were higher than the official numbers based on their local connections and filed reporting,” said a Kurdish journalist who covers human rights issues in the city of Sanandaj, and who spoke to CPJ on March 17 on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“Both the judiciary and the Rouhani administration told Iranian journalists working inside the country not to cover the death toll caused by the coronavirus. They got in touch with the editors-in-chief in newsrooms and the administrators of Telegram and Instagram accounts,” the Kurdish journalist told CPJ.

Some journalists are reporting that Iran delayed news of the outbreak so that elections could proceed on February 21. And then there are the satellite photos of those mass graves that Iran was hiding.

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From beginning to end, Iran has hid, obscured, misdirected, and lied about the spread of the virus, it’s consequences, and the toll it has taken. That they won’t take aid from America because of their paranoid fantasies is not surprising.

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