Sulaymani made a speech January 18 at a conference in Tehran. The Fars news agency reported that he stated in that speech that Iran has much “influence” in South Lebanon and Iraq, where the people admire Iran’s way of doing things.
But the Al-Arabiyya news channel based in Dubai picked up that Farsi story and reported, in Arabic, that Sulaymani had said Iran “dominates” South Lebanon and Iraq.
The Al-Arabiyya account and mistranslation has been picked up by numerous other Arabic news outlets. The Islamic Republic has denied Sulaymani said anything about “domination” and has accused “American allies” of intentionally falsifying the quote.
