Right Wing Media On Iran In 2025 Sounds A Lot Like It Did On Iraq In 2002/3
We're officially past rhyming and into history (or at least rhetoric) repeating.
Given that the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has publicly rejected President Trump’s call for his nation’s unconditional surrender, it appears that the US is moving closer and closer to an armed intervention. And the lead-up to a US military attack on Iran is starting to sound eerily similar to the lead up to our 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Take, for example, Senator Ted Cruz, who literally reused a phrase President George W. Bush used to justify action in 2003:
Likewise, former George W Bush DoJ Staffer Mark Levin is recycling GWB era “you’re either with us or against us” rhetoric:
I’ve never done LSD but I’m feeling like I’m on the worst flashback ever.
Trump supporters also seem to be swapping their positions in order to promote (or at a minimum defend) military action. Take, for example, the publisher of The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway. First she was against military action in Iran:
However, yesterday on Fox and Friends, she reversed course:
This all fits into a general “pro-war” stance that Fox News seems to be taking at the moment. From CNN:
As conservative radio host Clay Travis opened his mouth Tuesday night on Fox News, he was hyper-aware of the viewer-in-chief.
President Trump is “probably watching” this show, Travis said to Fox host Sean Hannity as both men urged the president to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.
“We have to do it,” Travis said, adding, “We can’t go halfway here.” …
Trump’s favorite network, Fox News, isn’t making as much room for debate. Guest after guest on Fox has played to Trump’s ego — simultaneously praising the president and pushing for US intervention through his television screen. (At one point, Fox host Kayleigh McEnany, a former Trump aide, waxed poetic about him being a Churchillian “man of action.”) …
Wednesday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” another one of the president’s cherished shows, also promoted an interventionist point of view. To “people who say it’s not our fight,” host Brian Kilmeade said, “you could say that, but you’re not paying attention. Since the 1980s, they have been killing Americans.”
Then, Kilmeade threw to a video clip of Levin’s pro-war arguments from the night before.
“I’m not one that wants to get involved in things. I’m not. But we have no choice! They are our enemy!” co-host Lawrence Jones said. [source]
This extends beyond Fox News. Others like Laura Loomer, who appears to have more of President Trump’s trust than his own National Security Advisor, is, of course, all in.
Loomer and I have very different understandings about what constitutes an act of war.
We’re seeing similar comments from traditional neocons. And then there is Glenn Beck, bless his heart, who attempts to explain how Iran will NOT be like Iraq using the EXACT same arguments that were used in 2002/3 to justify why we would be successful in Iraq:
That isn’t to say that all of the right-wing media is pro-Iran war. Returning to CNN:
Tucker Carlson’s absence is palpable. After he was fired from Fox in 2023, Carlson built himself a digital media platform with a big megaphone on X, as he proved again Tuesday night by teasing a contentious interview with Sen. Ted Cruz.
But Carlson and his isolationist views are no longer as visible to Trump, who has an old-school, cable-centric mentality about the media. …
Carlson called on Trump to “drop Israel” and “let them fight their own wars.” He branded Levin, Hannity, and Fox patriarch Rupert Murdoch as “warmongers” pushing the president to join the conflict. …
Hannity threw shade at Carlson on Tuesday night, though not by name, when he said Iran is “the biggest existential threat to the entire western world,” and “people that can’t seem to understand that kind of puzzle me.” …
This foreign policy feud has torn apart other pockets of MAGA media. Far-right podcaster Candace Owens exited The Daily Wire last year after she called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” and openly embraced antisemitic conspiracies. The conservative media empire’s co-founder Ben Shapiro, who is adamantly pro-Israel, called Owens’ comments “disgraceful,” kicking off a battle that has since rippled throughout the extremely online right.
As for President Trump, he had this to say about Tucker Carlson:
“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” the president said after Carlson, a highly watched Fox News personality until his 2023 firing, accused Trump of being “complicit” in Israel’s attacks on Iran. [source]
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
It’s verbatim. And I don’t think they even realize it.
The US doesn’t need to get into this war, we need to send a couple B2s to drop bunker busters on two sites. We could have done that on the quiet. Obviously everyone would know it was us, it’d be a pretty undernourished fig leaf, but we could have done it without the ‘We’ control the skies, and “I” may kill Khamenei.
Next we’ll hear that Trump personally piloted a B2 and made a big, beautiful explosion. The biggest most beautiful explosion, like you can not imagine. No one’s ever seen such a beautiful explosion. And the pilot said I flew the plane better than he did!
Putin could still yank Trump’s chain, but I’m not sure he’d see any real profit in it. Even the Russians don’t want the Ayatollahs having nukes. Russia’s making their own Shaheed knock-offs, and he certainly doesn’t want to do anything to actually help Iran militarily.
Yeah, I think a lot of the rhetoric is the same, but the circumstances are far different.
I think the biggest danger is mission creep. Israel’s efforts have been surprisingly successful thus far, and that causes leaders to expand their goals for the campaign. It’s a natural dynamic and seen in most every war, and the rhetoric is increasingly supportive of maximalist objectives, which can sometimes work out, but often tend to backfire.
@Michael Reynolds:
At this point, I think that’s the best case scenario. I agree that we could and probably should take out Fordo and potentially other nuclear sites that Israel can’t hit, and do it like you said, on the quiet. Iran would then be faced with the choice of openly attacking the US. In a way, it would be using Iran’s own tactics against them, as they have done so much bad stuff over the years with just a band-aid of plausible deniability.
I doubt that will happen, though, and I still expect the US to enter the conflict in a much bigger way (which again, I think would be a mistake).
@Michael Reynolds:
You overlooked the … “… 4 star generals and Air Force leadership cried in deep transformational joy when they saw how Trump deftly dropped the bombs. They had never seen such accuracy or steely quiet confidence. Both precision and pattern bombing accomplished by one man, one aircraft, one action.”
Because yeah. Of course.
All kidding aside:
What does a bully do when their opponent is down? They walk up and kick them in the side repeatedly.
Israel already did the task, Iran is on the brink…. Trump just wants the credit for it.
“I’ve never done LSD, but that’s the worst flashback ever”
This is such a beautiful line, I think I’m gonna steal it. Or save it for later and then use it when nobody remembers who said it.
@Michael Reynolds:
Do you suggest painting Russian or Chinese markings on the B-2s?
Trump is flat out lying when he days he doesn’t know what Carlson is saying. Non-traditional media is their strength. Yeah, he cares about Fox, but a lot of their push comes from Facebook and other social media.
More unintelligible word salad.
But it doesn’t matter. The war fever is on.
BTW. This is classic Trump. Real tough against the weak (Iran, Ukraine). A suck up against the strong (Russia).
Lord save us from weak men.
@Michael Reynolds: “It’s verbatim. And I don’t think they even realize it.”
It’s not just the right wing media. The mainstream media are playing exactly the same notes as they did with Iraq, suddenly choosing to believe every word that comes out of an administration populated by liars in order to cheerlead for another military disaster.
Hell, they don’t even need the figleaf of Colin Powell whoring out his reputation to spread the lie. They simply pretend that Trump has a clue to what’s going on.
Here’s hoping Massie’s War Powers Resolution gains traction.
It is remarkable that MAGA/Republicans keep leading us into conflicts while in complete disagreement with the Intelligence Community.
@Andy:
I suspect the only thing that’s holding Trump back from dropping our big bunker busters is the USAF telling him they can not promise the things will do the job.
“200 feet of ground penetration” is BS, as loose sand and granite both qualify as ground.
You gotta admit, there are hints of truth in some of these statements. I’ll agree that Trump is a man of action, for example. He’s like a battery-powered cat toy, always doing something but you never know which way he’s going to go. And completely useless, aside from entertaining primitive brains.
@dazedandconfused:
Yeah, I’ve read that it may take multiple MOPP drops to break through. The open source info on these is pretty sparse.
I would hope the military is also telling him of the potential and probable consequences to the US officially joining the war.
Iran is running out of options to attack Israel, but they still have plenty left to hit things in the gulf, Iraq, eastern Syria, etc. Hopefully the generals are telling him that this wouldn’t magically be a limited operation.
@Andy:
The only way Petey keeps his super-secret anti-LGBQT makeup studio is to tell Trump exactly what he wants to hear.
@Michael Reynolds:
We don’t “need” to do anything. Discussing an attack on another nation as an inevitability is exactly the rhetorical trick that media outlets played before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
@Michael Reynolds:
That’s getting into the war.
@Kingdaddy:
OK, replace ‘need’ with ‘should.’
@Steven L. Taylor:
It’s not as binary as that. Are we in the war in Ukraine? Yes, but also, no. Dropping MOPs on nuclear facilities is not invasion or occupation. It’s not even regime change.
@Michael Reynolds: That’s a degree of ambiguity that’s dangerous, as some of the disastrous “involvements” in Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya, and elsewhere have shown. Even in the best of times, we blundered into situations we did not fully understand, and we gilded our expectations of the outcomes of these “involvements” with wishful thinking. But these are, of course, the worst of times, when the person making this decisions is a cretinous buffoon who takes advice from no one who knows what they’re talking about, just lickspittles and zealots.
@Michael Reynolds: Dude, once you cross the line into sending US military personnel to directly bomb targets in Iran you are in the war. Period. Full stop.
Especially if you are directly aiding Israel with a specific war aim.
El Taco will do what he thinks will make him look good* and/or put him in the spotlight longer. Since making an actual treaty is hard and takes a long time, I’m guessing he’ll go to war.
Now, if he’s serious about pushing the Iranians towards negotiations, he’ll order massive bombings on the oil terminals, production fields, and associated infrastructure. That would hurt Iran in its money, and thus make them beg for mercy.
*Mission: Impossible!
@Kingdaddy:
If only it were that simple.
Strange list. There was no ambiguity with Vietnam. And Lebanon? The lesson there is don’t be peacekeepers in a civil war. Libya is a somewhat better example, but notice how no one gives a shit about Libya? It’s been effectively memory-holed and the international repercussions have zero effect on the US. And the sad reality is the Americans don’t really care about brown people killing brown people due to our strategic mistakes.
True, but hardly unique to the US. When Iran greenlighted Hezbollah attacking Israel on Oct. 8th 2023, or when Iran decided to attack Israel directly with the two largest ballstic missile strikes in global history, they blundered into their current situation. Or Russia planning a 3 day war against Ukraine. Or any number of historical examples.
As much as I wish the US was immune to this, we aren’t. Every country does this.
I agree with the cretinous buffon part, but these are hardly the worst of times. And it’s not true he takes advice from no one.
@Steven L. Taylor:
That’s true but also too simplistic. War is fundamentally a political activity and the US and Israel have been in various states of conflict with Iran for a very long time.
I mean, we blew the shit out of the Iranians during Praying Mantis (you’re old enough to remember that). We directly bombed Iranian targets. There was no formal declaration of war or cessation of hostilities.
Yeah, kind of like we are aiding Ukraine? Or, kind of like Iran aiding the factions that blew up US Marines in Lebanon, or directly aiding the Shia militants killing US soldiers in Iraq in ~2005, or Iranian proxies attacking US forces in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq over the past coupl of years? Or what about the assassination-er, I mean “targeted killing” of Solemani, and the Iranian ballistic missile attack in response? Or any number of other examples I could name?
There are no hard and fast rules here. Each country decides its own red lines and decides when something is bad enough to justify the use of warfare or violence as a political tool.
In short, we don’t know what will happen, and a lot will depend on the scope and scale of whatever the Trump administration decides to do. We can’t accurately predict Iran’s reaction. US involvement could be Praying Mantis Part Deux, or it could precipitate some unknowable alternative, knocking down a domino that cascades in a way we can’t foresee.
That’s really how I see all of this – it’s the uncertainty. Not only is war inherently uncertain, but so are its effects.
@Kathy:
Could he back down now without Mexican food references flying everywhere?
The Murdoch New York Post has published a relentless stream of propaganda urging Trump to “finish the job”, by authors ranging from Mike Pompeo to Andrew Roberts (sorry, Baron Roberts of Belgravia) to a member of the Knesset. No op-eds with an opposing view, naturally. MAGA comments, on the other hand, are pretty evenly split between “kill all the Muzzies” straight from 2002 and “not our war”.
Unfortunately, the split on the left looks like being even worse than on the right. Leaders of the Democratic Party can’t even bring themselves to condemn Israel’s attacks as morally wrong and unlawful; they resort to cost/benefit complaints that they’ll “increase regional instability”. Meanwhile fools like Fetterman try to outdo Lindsey Graham in their lust for Islamic blood. I expect they’re going to find a lot of liberals are opposed to both Israel’s attacks and American involvement, on the quaint old-fashioned ground that waging aggressive war is a crime against humanity which can never be excused under any circumstances.
@Andy: I have to admit this feels like a lot of lecturing that amounts to more agreement than disagreement with my basic point.
How about this, are we more in the war or less in the war of we bomb Fordo?
@Andy: @Steven L. Taylor: I mean, rather obviously I understand that there is a continuum of involvement in these things.
But there is reason that the US isn’t flying missions in Ukraine rather than what we are doing and it is manifestly obvious that flying sorties into Iran to help achieve not just an objective, but THE Israeli objective cannot be construed, per MR, as not “get[ting] into the war” which was what I was responding to.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yes, it’s getting involved in the war at a greater level, the key point being, at a greater level – not starting from zero.
More, but how much more depends on how things play out. It could be a bit more or a lot more. The thing about war is that the enemy gets a vote. This is a two-sided affair, and what happens depends a great deal on how the other party chooses to respond to whatever you do – and since you usually can’t confidently predict how they’ll react and don’t fully understand the motivations and red lines of the other party, the uncertainty creeps in.
As MR originally suggested, a semi-clandestine attack on a single site where the US doesn’t admit doing anything but everyone knows (wink, wink) could (and probably would) play out a lot differently than the US going Leroy Jenkins or all-in. The Iranians, more than most anyone else, would understand that since that’s their modus operandi.
@Ken_L:
Why should they tho? Democrats are not going to condemn Israel’s strikes for the same reasons people who watch the TV show Dexter don’t condemn him for serial killing serial killers.
The Iranian regime brutalizes women and murders gays. It is currently and closely allied with Putin, a murderous dictator who has waged cyberwar on the US, worked to destroy the Democratic Party and Western democracy, and elevated fascism and white supremacy worldwide. Right now, Iran is helping Putin kill Ukrainians and attack Europe. Iran’s proxies slaughtered Democrats’ natural kibbutizm allies in Israel on 7 Oct, an act which has strengthened Netanyahu, himself a Democratic Party antagonist.
Democrats can express opposition to another MidEast war and sympathy for civilians without making statements for Iranian propagandists to use. Trump helped make this mess by enabling Netanyahu and letting neocons goad him into killing Obama’s Iran deal. Let Trump sort it.
Any attack on Iran opens the door to retaliation, in asymmetric ways.
To which the war drums will relentlessly pound for greater engagement, in a tit for tat cycle that leads to US troops in Tehran.
I wish this was some brilliant insight but it is the most effing foreseeable consequence possible.
@Michael Reynolds: ” Dropping MOPs on nuclear facilities is not invasion or occupation.”
Maybe to you it’s not. I suspect that the leaders of Iran would see things differently and would act accordingly, and then we’d be smack in the middle of the war you claim not to want.
@Andy: “There was no ambiguity with Vietnam.”
There wasn’t? Not even over whether the Gulf of Tonkin incident that propelled us into the war was entirely fabricated or simply wildly exaggerated?
@Andy: I feel kind of like you are either mansplaining me or purposefully missing my point. (or both).
If, in fact, munitions and aircraft only available to the US are used, makes the “semi” part pretty damn semi, especially given, you know, the Tweeter-in-Chief.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Look, I’m just giving my opinions. Agree or disagree with them, IDC, but I really don’t understand why you are taking pretty much everything I’m writing as a form of bad faith commentary.
I have learned when commenting here that I often need to fully explain what I’m trying to say including supporting information and arguments to avoid both intentional and unintentional misinterpretation. And I fully admit that even then I sometimes (or maybe even often) fail to get my point across. But I do try, and that’s why my comments tend be longer than most anyone else’s. I’m not sure what I can do to avoid you interpreting that as “mansplaining” – a weird way to characterize it considering we are both men.
As for MR’s idea, I think it’s a fantasy, albeit a clever way to try to thread the needle. I guess I’ll refrain from explaining why since it’s a fantasy and I don’t want to appear to be mansplaining. But yes, it’s not really possible – the Tweeter in chief would not keep his mouth shut and the usual DC courtiers would leak every detail.
Back in the real world, and trying to be clear here – I still do not think we (The USA) should get kinetically involved (and not to mansplain here, but we are already heavily involved in very similar ways we are with the war in Ukraine) unless Iran escalates or there is some new info that comes to light which might justify it. And again – I have long opposed strike Iran’s nuclear program, but that ship has sailed. I’m more concerned about what happens next and how this conflict progresses and ultimately concludes.
@Andy: I appreciate your giving your opinions. I have more than once lauded you for being one of our best commenters.
You simply came across as not trying to u feet and what I was saying. And telling a political scientist, “ War is fundamentally a political activity” along with making it sound like I didn’t understand US involvement in Ukraine and with Israel felt, well, man-splainy