As the media help fog us into another disastrous war of choice halfway around the world, some basic facts are being lost, and some basic questions aren’t being asked. Such as, what was an American military drone doing 34 kilometers outside Iranian airspace in the first place? And what would the American reaction be if an Iranian military drone was 34 kilometers outside American airspace?
Of course, many in the media reported at face value the White House spin that Trump called off an attack on Iran because he cared about the 150 civilians who would have been killed. Which was but one in a series of shifting explanations given by Trump and his propagandists, but even just at face value made no sense. The media mostly refused to investigate whether the timeline dots connected with another, more plausible explanation.
Children are dying at the U.S. border with Mexico and in Trump’s concentration camps, and to Trump it’s just another political game. Yet we’re supposed to believe he had even a fraction of a moment’s pause on bombing Iran because he was concerned for Iranian civilians? Trump tried to ban Iranians from even entering the United States, but now he cares about them? But many in the media parroted that political spin as if doing so was reporting. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Not even close.
Let’s get to the most basic question about Trump’s warmongering with Iran: What caused the sudden increase in tensions between Iran and the United States? Iran was abiding by the nuclear deal. It was Trump who broke the deal. Trump has even threatened economic sanctions against America’s traditional allies and other world powers for trying to salvage it. And Trump appointed as national security adviser a man who has been pushing for war with Iran for more than a decade. That’s the real story. That’s the entire story. And many in the media couldn’t locate it with GPS, a map, and a tour guide.
This isn’t complicated. Only a staggeringly corrupt, compromised, and incompetent media could miss the single most important fact about the tinderbox crisis between Trump and Iran, and yet assiduously missing it has been the defining feature of most of the coverage. This isn’t as bad as the media coverage while the second Bush administration lied the United States into war with Iraq. It’s actually worse.
This entire crisis was invented by Trump and his advisers. Iran’s government is brutal and awful, but there are plenty of brutal and awful governments in faraway nations, some of which Trump defies Congress to placate and assist. And Iran was complying with its obligations under the nuclear deal. Until Trump scuttled it.
Meanwhile, Trump just frothed his way into 2020 campaign mode. His own polling is so awful that he fired his pollsters. And even though Trump continues to obstruct investigations into his many scandals, and even though even Congress still hasn’t seen the unredacted Mueller report, the public is slowly, steadily warming to the idea of impeachment. There are no good or rational reasons for the United States to be edging toward war with Iran. But there are plenty of bad ones.
Don’t lose focus. Don’t let the media lose focus. Keep it simple. Because the facts are simple. And on the verge of becoming horrifying.
This entire crisis was invented by Trump and his advisers. The blame for it is entirely on them.