A Washington Post national security reporter is being called out on Twitter after she retweeted a blatantly pro-Iran, anti-American post Monday.

Missy Ryan, who covers "the Pentagon, military issues and national security" for the news outlet, evidently couldn't resist the urge to take a swipe at President Donald Trump as she retweeted a post that misleadingly portrayed a large crowd in Tehran mourning the death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani side-by-side with a picture of a much smaller crowd celebrating Trump's inauguration in January 2017.

The tweet, originally posted by the user "ElElegante101" reads: "PERSPECTIVE: Tehran today vs. Trump's inauguration crowd."

A wapo natsec columnist RTing this is why media employers will soon be forced to stop all of you from tweeting anything that's not a link to your own edited and curated work. pic.twitter.com/Z2CE7XuXJx

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) January 6, 2020

That a U.S. reporter would apparently demonstrate preference for a terrorist military leader such as Soleimani over the president of her own country is alarming, but perhaps not necessarily shocking in today's media climate.



What is more alarming is that she peddled propaganda for the terrorist regime in her retweet. Reporting from Ryan's own news outlet is at odds with the image being spread on the internet.

Her own outlet reports the demonstrations as contrived

On Monday, the Post ran a story by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and Post contributor, titled: "Don't believe Iranian propaganda about the mourning for Soleimani."

"Over the next few days, it will be hard to escape footage of huge crowds gathering in Iranian cities to mourn the death of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed by a U.S. drone strike. For anyone watching, I have one piece of advice: Don't take what you're seeing at face value," Alinejad suggested.

Evidently, Ryan didn't get the memo.

The article cited the massive protests that had erupted throughout Iran over the past several months, in which at least 1,500 people were killed by security forces — including forces under Soleimani's leadership.

Alinejad said she has received thousands of messages from Iranians saying they are elated about Soleimani's death and that the demonstrations are largely contrived.

She reported that the Iranian government has forced students to hit the streets in mourning, providing free transport and shutting down shops. Children have been made to write essays praising Soleimani; the ones who cannot write are encouraged to cry for him.

Some Iranians have allegedly compared the funeral processions to ones held for Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, who was killed by Allied forces during World War II.

Ryan hit with Twitter backlash

Users on Twitter were not shy in calling out Ryan's propaganda peddling. Below are some of the best responses to her retweet:

"Twitter owns. This is the sort of insight into a writer's broken brain thinking that you wouldn't be able to get from reading a dozen of their articles."

"A despotic regime that made documented efforts to cajole and coerce its people to mourn publicly vs a free people being free =/= owning Trump."

"A perfect example of how deranged and radical much of our media has become."

"I never thought I'd see the day when American journalists would actively spread Iranian propaganda and openly sympathize with the Iranian regime against the American government, but here we are."

"Most people could easily resist retweeting that."

(H/T: Twitchy)