RSSBehind the ‘Phony War’ on Iran
This from my new op ed in the National:
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s rocketeers – helped by its Photoshop mujahideen – managed last week to set off a wave of hysteria by test-firing four medium-range missiles to underscore its capacity to retaliate against any US-Israeli air strikes. (Well, three actually, the photo retouching was needed to disguise the failure to launch of the fourth.) But the hysteria seemed more like going through the motions of pre-existing agendas than a sign of impending combat.
The piece touches on what I believe is the significant debate in Washington, which is not that usually reported pitting those who actually want to attack Iran against those who want to pursue diplomacy; instead, it is being fought between those who believe diplomacy will only succeed if the Iranians believe they’re facing a real military threat, and those who believe that creating that such a belief would retard rather than enhance diplomacy and risk unintended escalation.
In other words, all Bush’s talk about the military option remaining “on the table” is an increasingly transparent bluff. But the real diplomacy will begin only after a new U.S. president is seated.
To read the whole thing, click here.
The Latest
Glancing Headers
World Cup 2010
For a variety of reasons, I ended up watching the World Cup Final on a TV tied to a tree at the soccer fields in the Red Hook section of BrooklynRebellion Into Money
How Slovenia Wins the World CupGuest Columns
How I Overcame My Jewish-Evangelical Upbringing and Learned to Love Christmas, Anyway
Guest Column: Gavin Evans Back in the day, when Gavin and I were young activists trying to change the world, the doorbell rang at our Observatory student house. I opened it to see a tall and handsome man in the silky purple shirt and dog collar of an Anglican Bishop. "You must be Tony," said Bis...Featured Analysis
Does Obama Have a Mideast Plan B?
It's hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night on Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Middle East peace process. The Israeli leader's refu...Unholy War
Who Lost Fatah?
‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second W...A Skeptical Read
More Iran Hysteria from the NY Times
The surest sign that another neocon bill of goods is being hawked in respect of the Iran "nuclear peril" is the revival of Rumsfeld-esque "unknowable unknowns", a la Iraq WMD panic circa late 2002. In the real world, of course, solid progress is being made towards a plausible diplomatic deal to ...99c Blogging
The 'Metrics' of Obama's Vietnam
Why is the Administration conducting a "test run" for its metrics of success in Afghanistan? Because the metrics used will be those that provide the desired verdictHear! Hear!
Helena Cobban Explains FatahIf I Was a Blogger...
More Dennis Ross Dissembling
Obama's Iran point man can't seem to get his head around the reasons for Israeli emigrationA Wondering Jew
Obama, Foxman and Israel's Purpose
Having spent decades drumming home the idea that Israel is rooted squarely in the Holocaust experience, and should be viewed by the world as the state of the survivors, Israelis and some of their most fervent backers in the U.S. are suddenly insisting that this is a misleading, even hostile idea.Annals of Globalization
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...The Whole World's Africa
Congo's Not Africa's WWI, It's Worse Than That
If there is a European analogy to be applied in the Congo, it would be the brutal Thirty Year War in Germany that ended in 1648Shameless Cronyism
Embedded with the Jihadis
My crazy friend Nir Rosen goes on embed with the Taliban, and finds out just why the U.S. can't win in AfghanistanCould Die Laughing
Whatever Became of that Nice Mr. Blair...
The problem with a global conversation between Muslims and Christians refereed by Tony Blair? Two words: Tony Blair.The 51st State
A Teachable Moment in Basra
It should come as no surprise that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's disastrous offensive against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr in Basra has had the exact opposite effect of that intended -- strengthening rather than weakening Sadr, and making clear that he, and the Iranians, have far greater in...Futures Market
Will Russia Partition Kosovo?
Why my tea-leaf reading suggests that Moscow has a nasty surprise in store for Washington in the BalkansCuisine
Yummy yummy Umami
Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic eventHousekeeping
'Lost' Entries on Rootless Cosmopolitan
Previous entries that now register as "not available" are ones that got left behind in a server migration. We're working on retrieving themNew York Moments
The Debka Made ‘Em Do ItFrom Tony's Archive
A Playground Lesson for Bush
How a spontaneous alliance of jocks, do-gooders and lesser bullies against the biggest bully at the school changed the balance of power at Milnerton Primary
9 Responses to “Behind the ‘Phony War’ on Iran”
Nice picture: Cheney as George Constanza!
“The sea was angry that day, my friends!”
Hi Tony,
I think you’ve threaded the needle by filtering the real Bush administration policy from all of the media buzz.
In the end game, I think the Photoshop of the dud missile has inadvertently benefited the Iranian regime by exposing the schizophrenic nature of the Western media — that is, is Iran really a threat or is it not?
As you already know, the layout of a news website will typically tell you where the paper behind the web site stands politically. Namely, they will put the headlines supporting the paper’s views in the most conspicuous areas and hide the ones that serve the contrary purpose. For instance, on JPOST.COM, the “Iranian Threat” section of the website takes significant precedence over other items, over even other matters of concern for the Israeli public, such as “Israel”, the “Jewish World”, the “Middle East”, “Local Israel” and “Business”. JPOST.COM prominently featured the Photoshop situation in the “Iranian Threat” section over the last two days.
Now the key question is, why would a paper that is promoting an existential threat as its main audience lure also feature an article that very much shows that the same threat is not really even a threat at all? Even the sheeple, baaa excuse me, the people who talkback, or comment, on JPOST.COM are oblivious to this ironic circumstance. For a year or two they have been wringing their panties and playing the chicken little game over an Iran that has been adamantly posturing that they will not attack any State in the Middle East. Now, they mock the same country as not being a threat at all.
Further, when I attempted to post my own comment on the site about this contradiction, the comment was not approved by the JPOST.COM staff, despite being fully in compliance with the rules for their comments.
It goes to show that there really is a media machine at work here. However, I am curious as to whether this media machine has actual ties to the administration agendas they are purposely advancing or whether this is just another case of yellow journalism syndrome? In other words, are any government actors of Israel and the US actively putting journalists on a payroll or coercing them to paint a certain picture?
It wouldn’t surprise me. But, I don’t like to think of it as being so black and white either. It doesn’t necessarily have to be “official” government actors doing the dirty deed of manipulating the media to their end, it could, perhaps, just be an interested group of people. AIPAC? (http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/07/aipac-treason-trial.html)
It’s funny, just as I was writing this reply to your blog, JPOST.COM posted another article here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330945390&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. It is 12:51 AM EST Sunday and the article says that Bush gave a Senior Pentagon Official the “Amber Light” to attack Iran on SUNDAY MORNING. The fishiness continues within that article, a must read if you have some popcorn around.
Again, kudos on a great op-ed. You really should be featured in more news publications. I placed a “DIGG” on this blog entry and will inform my friends to up your digg rank shortly.
-Nick
Just wanted to add that JPOST.COM just edited the article to read that the Pentagon Official was quoted from the British Sunday Times after I let them know of their fishy reporting. Despite this, the 2nd paragraph, commentary by JPOST staff, contradicts the entirety of the article by saying Bush did not give an “AMBER light” but a “free reign” to Israel to do as it pleased. The laughs keep coming.
The funny thing about the “photoshopped” image that appeared in the Western Media is that in the UK all the news broadcasters - Sky, BBC, Channel 4 - endlessly replayed the Iranian TV pictures that clearly showed 3 rockets launching whilst a 4th remained on its launcher. I’m pretty sure that the evening CBS new show, which gets shown late-nite on Sky, also showed the same Iranian TV footage.
What’s wierd is that no journalist, picture researcher or editor from the print outlets that published the inaccurate photo seems to have noticed the discrepancy before going to press - which means that they have the attention spans of, well, drunk goldfish.
lol
http://www.presstv.ir/photo/20080715/barghi20080715171450500.jpg
Press outlets are notorious for using bad pictures of political figures to extend their aims…but this one is hilarious.
I have to say, I could not agree with you in 100%, but that’s just my IMHO, which indeed could be very wrong.
p.s. You have an awesome template for your blog. Where did you find it?
Totally awesome, I love bookmarked this on my delicious page and will recommend this post to all my friends! Thanks! Super stuff! This was a really helpful post, thanks for pulling it all together. Wonderful post and great information. Very useful post. Bookmarked. Very informative. Sweet thanks for this wonderful resources.
shares employ a excellent web page decent Gives many thanks for the effort to assist everyone
Leave a Reply