On the morning of Aug. 5, an anonymous account on X in India posted seemingly sensational news. The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had vowed that his country would never give up its nuclear weapon ambitions as long as Israel and the United States possessed those weapons, the account said.
It was not true, and there’s no evidence that the commander made the remark or that Iran has developed nuclear weapons. The claim soon caromed around the internet anyway.
The quotation appeared on Israeli accounts, and then a television channel there posted it, calling it the first public declaration that Iran was working to build a nuclear bomb. That evening, it made its way into remarks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the country’s national cemetery.
On the morning of Aug. 5, an anonymous account on X in India posted seemingly sensational news. The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had vowed that his country would never gi...