Here’s an incredible example of the BBC’s infatuation with Jew-hating, terror-supporting Islamic dictatorships, in an obscene puff piece about Iran’s “elections:” Iran’s politicians get image savvy. (Hat tip: Occasional Reader.)

“I’m in Club Rafsanjani!” jokes a young girl on her mobile telephone to her mother in Fereshteh, an affluent area of north Tehran.

Dressed in three-quarter length trousers, a tight overcoat and colourful headscarf, she is one of several young Iranians handing out election stickers for Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the frontrunner in Friday’s presidential elections.

Techno music is playing from Mr Rafsanjani’s office and there are even two disco lights on the upper floor. Some of the Persian pop songs come from the banned satellite channels in California.

Meanwhile, boys in black jackets and pointy shoes wearing big shades and greased back hair are thrusting posters of the 71-year-old cleric into car windows.

They give out cakes and even copies of a special CD made for Mr Rafsanjani’s campaign to motorists passing by.

The stickers are written in English, not Farsi and some boys are plastered in them - across their foreheads, on every arm and leg.

Mr Rafsanjani has found an unusual following among the youth of Iran, who hope he will address their problems if he comes to power.

The subject of this glowing portrait, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, gave a sermon on December 14, 2001 at Tehran University, expressing his fond hope that soon “the world of Islam” would be able to nuke Israel off the face of the Earth.

If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

As Sean Penn would put it, the BBC understands where he’s coming from.