Ross Barkan
Watch enough Pentagon press conferences and a running theme emerges: Pete Hegseth whining about media coverage of the war in Iran. “You’re either informing American people of the truth or you’re not,” the Defense secretary and former Fox News pundit fumed recently. “Behind every headline you write, there’s a helicopter crew in the air, and behind every news banner you write, there’s a battalion on the move. And behind every fake news story, there’s an F-35 pilot executing a dangerous mission. My message to the media is get it right.”
The media, of course, is getting it right. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war has been an abject disaster. It’s a victory for the West that the murderous Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is now dead, but little has otherwise changed: Khamenei’s son is in charge, and the theocratic, autocratic regime remains functional. Israel’s apparent belief that the Iranian people would successfully overthrow the regime if a bombing campaign commenced was entirely mistaken. Netanyahu doesn’t seem to care much either way since he has moved on to immiserating Lebanon, but it’s now clear the war has offered little for the world but needless bloodshed and chaos. A decade ago, Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran was a peaceful, clearheaded attempt to head off further disaster. Diplomacy had a chance. Now, the Middle East is on fire, thousands of civilians are dead, and the U.S. troop death toll threatens to skyrocket if Trump launches any sort of ground invasion as he has indicated he might. The Strait of Hormuz remains throttled; a global energy crisis is already here and, with it, far higher prices at American gas pumps.
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