Media Coverage of the War Has One Target: Trump
The fourth estate is rooting against the president.
Why does the U.S. mainstream media continue to mock America’s war efforts? Why does coverage of the Iran war appear to favor Iranian narratives?
Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times pulled no punches on where it thinks things stood just before the ceasefire:
A slurring Trump rehashed a bunch of his Truth Social posts, alternately boasting about America’s military progress while threatening war crimes… He showed us that he has no plan to get out of the mess he created. One way to judge how the war is going is to look at which side is trying to wrap it up. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that “the Iranian government believes it is in a strong position in the war and does not have to accede to America’s diplomatic demands.”
Even after the ceasefire and plans to reopen the strait were announced, the Times could only sum up Trump’s power diplomacy as “the mark of an impulsive leader who is used to getting his way through coercion and unpredictability” and that he had “backed off.”
The Times goes on to review “American war crimes” and claims bombing only strengthened Iranian resolve. It concludes that “all we know is that he [Trump] has managed to give Iran the upper hand in this conflict while tanking the global economy and shredding America’s most important alliances.” Another headline claims the takeaway from the earlier rescue of the downed American airman was all of “Trump is Emboldened,” followed by “Trump Revels in Threats to Commit War Crimes in Iran” now that the missing airman is safe.
Another piece claims, “Iran has now demonstrated de facto control over much of the global economy. Its Parliament is considering whether to formalize the charging of fees for passage, and an Iranian official warned earlier on social media that the United States would not regain access to the strait.” The article goes on to place suffering on a scale of justice, expressing regret over the civilian deaths in Iran without mentioning those in Israel. It cryptically refers to “displaced millions” across the Gulf without indicating who they might be. It blames all these problems and more on Trump personally.
An op-ed headlined “Remember the Oil Shocks of the ’70s? This Is Going to Be Worse. Much Worse” depicts the global economy spiraling out of control by citing the cost of a gallon of gas. It fails to note the price for gas peaked at around $5 per gallon in June 2022 under the worst of the Biden inflation. Crude oil, varying between $88 a barrel and over $100, hit $116 in 2022 without the media writing in apocalyptic terms, never mind blaming one man. It has already dropped to $93 following the ceasefire.
The prize for most egregious telling of the Iran War story pre-ceasefire, however, goes to flagship Democratic journal Foreign Affairs, which features an article written by none other than Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s former vice president, foreign minister, and UN representative. Zarif writes,
More than a month in, the Islamic Republic is clearly winning [the war]. American and Israeli forces have spent weeks incessantly bombing Iranian territory, killing thousands of people and damaging hundreds of buildings, all in hopes of toppling the country’s government. Yet Iran has held the line and successfully defended its interests. It has maintained continuity of leadership even as its top officials have been assassinated, and it has repeatedly hit back at its aggressors even as they strike at its military, civilian, and industrial facilities. The Americans and the Israelis who started the conflict with delusions of forcing capitulation thus find themselves in a quagmire without an exit strategy. The Iranians, by contrast, have pulled off a historic feat of resistance.
He concludes the U.S. must now effectively sue for peace with Tehran and remove the sanctions that have been in place for the 47 years, since Iran took over the American Embassy in Tehran and began an asymmetric war across the Gulf. If not, Zarif warns, there is “reason to continue fighting until the aggressors are adequately punished rather than to search for a negotiated ending.” A companion article by a former State Department official claims that “Tehran will now set the terms for peace.”
The dominant tone in high-visibility outlets frames Donald Trump’s decisions not just as controversial or risky, but as inherently unserious, worthy of ridicule, even dangerous. Late-night, top-tier op-eds, and even purported straight news analysis emphasize impulsiveness, strategic incoherence, or near-comedic personal motivations (the entire war is nothing but cover for the Epstein files!) behind decision-making. Thus every action is wrong, and every loss of American life, however tragic, is actually an exaggerated negative turning point. When a deadline is extended, it is seen as an example of weakness rather than a diplomatic tool. The troops, from the generals on down, once labeled by the media as the baby-killers of Vietnam, have morphed into a sort of victim themselves, forced to commit war crimes in a meaningless struggle.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) accused the media of engaging in selective coverage that benefited Iran during the first 30 days of the war. “I read the entire political spectrum on Epic Fury. Iran now loves and learns from the media,” Fetterman said. “The media’s selective coverage rewards and reinforces Iran’s strategy. Media amplifies the one percent chaos Iran creates, while ignoring the 99 percent of Iran’s beatdown.”
From an ironic point of view, based on American media coverage, one can’t help but be impressed by what the Iranians apparently have accomplished. Despite weeks of bombing, the destruction of over 12,000 targets, the loss of layers of tested leadership, the effective end of its navy and air force, the loss of oil revenue through the Strait, and the end of relationships with all the other Gulf states, it seems the Iranians have brought America down to its knees, stuck in a quagmire watching the world collapse around it. Iranian actions are admired as tactically clever, disciplined, and strategically effective as they take American military and Israeli civilian lives. There is almost respect for the plucky Iranian ability to harm our own people. All after only some six weeks.
Criticism often focuses on this being a war without end. In comparison, what did the media say about the Vietnam War (1,018 weeks), or Iraq II (about 416 weeks depending on who is counting)? America’s longest war, in Afghanistan, went on for some 1,040 weeks. The 1991 air campaign in Iraq, part of universally praised (at the time) Operation Desert Storm, lasted for approximately six weeks, about the same as today’s Iran war and needed to be followed by a massive ground invasion. The media initially celebrated each of those wars, and in the case of Iraq II and Afghanistan, tolerated true quagmires for decades across multiple presidencies, going as far as agreeing to label flat-out escalations as the nicer-sounding “surges.” For years they allowed completely false claims about weapons of mass destruction to stand solidly as justification for war in Iraq, even as they have turned Trump’s own war objectives into an SNL skit.
During the Cold War, mainstream media often assessed the Soviet military and later the North Vietnamese with a degree of awe. The issue today is when only derision toward American leadership and blind praise for Iranian effectiveness are published. When a headline mocks a U.S. operation as chaotic while another describes Iran’s response as “measured” or “savvy,” the cumulative effect can feel less like reporting and more like creating an expectation. The United States, once the most powerful nation in the world with overwhelming technological capability, is recast as bumbling, while its adversary is granted the aura of competence and control.
Some tension among patriotism, objectivity, and partisanship is actually a good thing for the media to wrestle with. Intelligent skepticism is good. During the later stages of the Vietnam war, criticism centered on whether journalists had legitimately lost faith in U.S. policy. The debate was mostly whether the media turned against the war too soon, or if it was simply reflecting the emerging reality. A mostly shared narrative organically evolved over time. In contrast, the criticism today is that the media purposely practices distortion with selective coverage that purposely highlights or invents failures while ignoring progress.
It is too early to know how this war ends, or even whether the ceasefire will hold in the short term. But that is not the real issue here revealed by the media. The coverage of the current war comes down to the desire to humiliate Trump. The mess, from the gas pump to the Middle East writ large, is entirely Trump’s fault. He is bleeding out American pocketbooks and American soldiers’ lives for some unclear personal gain (if not just being duped by Israel). His purported eventual failure with Iran, amplified in lockstep by the media, is what will finally bring down the “King” when lawsuits, impeachments, Russiagate, pussy hats, and the Epstein files failed. When audiences watch American actions mocked while Iranian actions are admired even as troops suffer, the media’s side can become difficult to figure out. Helluva way to run a war, never mind a nation.
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