Ben
10-01-2009, 04:31 AM
Salon.com -- Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday Sept. 30, 2009 11:31 EDT
How similar are the cases against Iran and Iraq?
Scott Shane has an article in today's New York Times examining whether the government and media's behavior now with regard to Iran is similar to what happened in 2002 and 2003 concerning Iraq. I'm quoted in the article in several places, including saying that the "similarities are substantial and disturbing." I want to focus on one point raised by this topic.
Although I think there are ample similarities, I don't think the situations are identical. To begin with, I don't believe (though it's obviously just speculation) that Obama's motive -- at least at this point -- is a military attack on Iran, if for no other reason than such an attack would severely complicate everything else he has to do. The similarities which I referenced have far more to do with how the media uncritically digests and disseminates government claims and how unproven assertions magically transform into unchallenged facts.
Consider this front-page New York Times article written the same day Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, held their melodramatic press conference. This is when and how conventional wisdom about this episode solidified, and that key NYT article does little more than re-print dubious and uncorroborated claims of anonymous American officials that cast the Iranian conduct in the most threatening possible light. One paragraph after the next is guilty of that, though I want to highlight this one in particular, because it's become such a central assertion for those wanting to incite panic about the Iranian facility:
Mr. Obama said he had withheld making the intelligence public for months because it "is very important in these kind of high-stakes situations to make sure the intelligence is right" -- a clear allusion to former President George W. Bush’s release of intelligence on Iraq seven years ago this month that proved baseless. Mr. Obama’s hand was forced, however, after Iran, apparently learning that the site had been discovered by Western intelligence, delivered a vague, terse letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday disclosing that it was building a second plant, one that it had never mentioned during years of inspections.
Is there any evidence whatsoever for that claim in bold? Although this assertion is repeated as fact over and over, I've not seen anything to support it other than the claims of anonymous government officials. What evidence is there that the Iranians reported this facility to the IAEA only because they learned that the U.S. had discovered the facility? For that matter, what evidence is there that the Iranians ever realized this at all? Whether Iran reported the facility voluntarily or only because they were forced to do so by virtue of having been "caught" is a self-evidently relevant fact to all of this, and yet the claims of anonymous officials on this question are uncritically assumed to be true without any skepticism, demands for evidence, or consideration of alternative views.
The same dynamic repeats itself on the question of whether this facility could have been designed for civilian uses, whether Iran really had any feasible hope to hide it (given the pervasive use of satellites), whether there were legitimate reasons for Iran to disperse its nuclear facilities, and whether Iran really violated international law by disclosing this facility to the IAEA more than a year (at least) before operability. Far more than any comparison between the Obama administration's current intentions towards Iran and Bush's towards Iraq in 2002, that is what I mean when I say there are substantial similarities between the two time periods.
In fact, that's what I believe is the most significant issue here. It's not surprising that media coverage of this matter is similar (though not identical) to what happened in 2002 with Iraq, given that media organizations and establishment journalists (with some exceptions) never examined what they did wrong in the run-up to the Iraq War and, indeed, don't think they did anything fundamentally wrong. Recall that David Gregory, Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and numerous other establishment journalists all explicitly said that they reject the view that they failed to do their jobs prior to the attack on Iraq. The NYT itself, one of the very few outlets to examine its pre-war behavior in any way, issued only the narrowest and mildest mea culpas, while one of that paper's prime culprits, Michael Gordon, to this day angrily rejects the notion that he did anything wrong, and thereafter, long continued to report on "the Iranian threat."
Just look at that original NYT article on Iran to see that the principal reporting methods have not changed. The whole article is framed based on claims from the government. The sources are almost all anonymous U.S. government officials. Provocative, unproven claims -- ones that will obviously inflame war passions among a significant segment of the population -- are passed on with no evidence and little questioning. Dissenting voices are excluded (other than a fleeting, token quote from the Iranian President buried in the middle). And overnight, an extremely fear-inciting and sensationalistic case against Iran was cemented as unchallengeable wisdom across the political spectrum. Along with a few other isolated reports, Shane's article today commendably includes some voices raising questions about all of this, but the vast bulk of the coverage from the start has consisted of an unquestioning recitation of the government's case against Iran. The similarities between that behavior and 2002 strike me as both self-evident and, given the lack of institutional remorse in journalism, inevitable.
Wednesday Sept. 30, 2009 11:31 EDT
How similar are the cases against Iran and Iraq?
Scott Shane has an article in today's New York Times examining whether the government and media's behavior now with regard to Iran is similar to what happened in 2002 and 2003 concerning Iraq. I'm quoted in the article in several places, including saying that the "similarities are substantial and disturbing." I want to focus on one point raised by this topic.
Although I think there are ample similarities, I don't think the situations are identical. To begin with, I don't believe (though it's obviously just speculation) that Obama's motive -- at least at this point -- is a military attack on Iran, if for no other reason than such an attack would severely complicate everything else he has to do. The similarities which I referenced have far more to do with how the media uncritically digests and disseminates government claims and how unproven assertions magically transform into unchallenged facts.
Consider this front-page New York Times article written the same day Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, held their melodramatic press conference. This is when and how conventional wisdom about this episode solidified, and that key NYT article does little more than re-print dubious and uncorroborated claims of anonymous American officials that cast the Iranian conduct in the most threatening possible light. One paragraph after the next is guilty of that, though I want to highlight this one in particular, because it's become such a central assertion for those wanting to incite panic about the Iranian facility:
Mr. Obama said he had withheld making the intelligence public for months because it "is very important in these kind of high-stakes situations to make sure the intelligence is right" -- a clear allusion to former President George W. Bush’s release of intelligence on Iraq seven years ago this month that proved baseless. Mr. Obama’s hand was forced, however, after Iran, apparently learning that the site had been discovered by Western intelligence, delivered a vague, terse letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday disclosing that it was building a second plant, one that it had never mentioned during years of inspections.
Is there any evidence whatsoever for that claim in bold? Although this assertion is repeated as fact over and over, I've not seen anything to support it other than the claims of anonymous government officials. What evidence is there that the Iranians reported this facility to the IAEA only because they learned that the U.S. had discovered the facility? For that matter, what evidence is there that the Iranians ever realized this at all? Whether Iran reported the facility voluntarily or only because they were forced to do so by virtue of having been "caught" is a self-evidently relevant fact to all of this, and yet the claims of anonymous officials on this question are uncritically assumed to be true without any skepticism, demands for evidence, or consideration of alternative views.
The same dynamic repeats itself on the question of whether this facility could have been designed for civilian uses, whether Iran really had any feasible hope to hide it (given the pervasive use of satellites), whether there were legitimate reasons for Iran to disperse its nuclear facilities, and whether Iran really violated international law by disclosing this facility to the IAEA more than a year (at least) before operability. Far more than any comparison between the Obama administration's current intentions towards Iran and Bush's towards Iraq in 2002, that is what I mean when I say there are substantial similarities between the two time periods.
In fact, that's what I believe is the most significant issue here. It's not surprising that media coverage of this matter is similar (though not identical) to what happened in 2002 with Iraq, given that media organizations and establishment journalists (with some exceptions) never examined what they did wrong in the run-up to the Iraq War and, indeed, don't think they did anything fundamentally wrong. Recall that David Gregory, Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and numerous other establishment journalists all explicitly said that they reject the view that they failed to do their jobs prior to the attack on Iraq. The NYT itself, one of the very few outlets to examine its pre-war behavior in any way, issued only the narrowest and mildest mea culpas, while one of that paper's prime culprits, Michael Gordon, to this day angrily rejects the notion that he did anything wrong, and thereafter, long continued to report on "the Iranian threat."
Just look at that original NYT article on Iran to see that the principal reporting methods have not changed. The whole article is framed based on claims from the government. The sources are almost all anonymous U.S. government officials. Provocative, unproven claims -- ones that will obviously inflame war passions among a significant segment of the population -- are passed on with no evidence and little questioning. Dissenting voices are excluded (other than a fleeting, token quote from the Iranian President buried in the middle). And overnight, an extremely fear-inciting and sensationalistic case against Iran was cemented as unchallengeable wisdom across the political spectrum. Along with a few other isolated reports, Shane's article today commendably includes some voices raising questions about all of this, but the vast bulk of the coverage from the start has consisted of an unquestioning recitation of the government's case against Iran. The similarities between that behavior and 2002 strike me as both self-evident and, given the lack of institutional remorse in journalism, inevitable.