Iran is trying to appeal to the basest emotions of Iraqis, with a ridiculous conspiracy accusation that will no doubt be accepted by some as truth: Iran: Israel, U.S. Rigging Iraq Election. (Hat tip: zulubaby.)

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Israeli and U.S. agents were behind bombings in Iraq’s Shi’ite holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, Iran’s Supreme Leader said Monday, accusing Tehran’s arch-foes of trying to rig Iraq’s elections for their own ends.

Shi’ite Muslim Iran was quick to condemn Sunday’s car bombings in Najaf and Kerbala, which killed 66 people. [Hmm. Incite and supply the killers, then “quickly” denounce them. Nice racket. —ed.]

“I am sure Israeli and American spy services were behind these events. This is a plot which aims at keeping the Iraqis so busy that they will miss the exceptional chance to participate in the January 30 elections,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, speaking to Mecca pilgrimage organizers on state TV.

“The British and Americans want to hold elections on the surface but in reality they want to bring their own agents to power by holding superficial elections,” added the Supreme Leader, who has the last word on all state matters.

Officials from oil-rich Iran have called for fully democratic elections next year in Iraq, where the majority of people are their Shi’ite coreligionists.

Right. Because we all know that Iran is a champion of democracy.

Meanwhile, in democratic Iran, girls as young as nine are charged with ‘moral crimes’.

“My mother doesn’t visit me in prison. If you see her, tell her she promised to bring me cheese curls and chocolate. And she shouldn’t forget to bring my red dress.”

Those pathetic words may be among the last utterances of a 19-year-old girl, identified only as Leila M, who has been condemned to death in Iran for “acts incompatible with chastity”.

According to Amnesty International, Leila has a mental age of eight. What evidence there is of her life so far records an existence of unrelieved misery and brutality.

She was sold into prostitution at the age of eight by her parents. She recalls the experience of when her mother “first took me to a man’s house” as “a horrible night. I cried a lot … but then my mum came the next day and took me home. She brought me chocolate and cheese curls.”

Forced by beatings and threats to continue “visiting men” from that night onwards, she became pregnant and had twins when she was 14. She was punished with 100 lashes by the Iranian courts for giving birth to illegitimate children.

Leila was bullied back into her degrading and demeaning work. Earlier this year, she confessed to the authorities that she had been working as a prostitute since she was a child — perhaps because she thought that they might help her escape her miserable existence.

The courts did respond by pulling Leila out of prostitution, but they also imprisoned her and used her confession to convict her of “moral crimes”, for which the judges have decided the appropriate penalty is death.