Thread by @ajplus

There's so much wrong with how U.S. media is covering the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and this coverage may actually make things worse. @albutters illuminates the dangers for AJ+: (1/22)

If Trump hardliners get their way and war does erupt, the badly broken U.S. media ecosystem will bear some responsibility for what will almost certainly be an international calamity. (2/22)

Look at last week's anti-Iran feeding frenzy in U.S. media: Washington reporters quoted mostly unnamed U.S. national security sources claiming there was a specific but unspecified Iranian threat to U.S. interests in the region. It already sounds shady. (3/22)

Trump stooges on Fox and other GOP-friendly outlets ran with the Iran "threat" claims without any skepticism. Washington correspondents from more reputable outlets, perhaps thinking of the flawed case for the Iraq War, were more skeptical. (4/22)

Editors made it a top story, though with attribution. NYT: "Citing Iranian Threat, U.S. Sends Carrier Group and Bombers to Persian Gulf." But days into the cycle, that attribution started getting dropped. CNN: "Patriot Missiles Deployed to Middle East Amid Iran Threats." (5/22)

Were these threats real? Maybe. But there's a long history, dating back to the Spanish-American War, of the U.S. going to war over dubious threats. (6/22)

In this case, it was clear the "threat" warnings came from Israeli intelligence and were shopped around by both the Netanyahu government and U.S. hardliners. Both parties have long, loudly and publicly demanded a more aggressive U.S. posture toward Iran. (7/22)

But headlines aren't framed that way. Editors won't run "Trump Ratchets Up Anti-Iran Rhetoric," let alone "Trump Puts U.S. on Iran War Footing." The closest is the NYT's "U.S. Reviews Iran Plans" – as if the U.S. is responding to a situation, rather than manufacturing one. (8/22)

This is just one cycle in 40 years of panic-inducing stories about the Islamic Republic. Balanced stories get lost amid buzzwords like "terror," "mullah," "nuclear," "proxies" and "militias." The psychological takeaway ends up being that Iran is a "threat." (9/22)

Even though the Trump admin is responsible for aggravating tensions by breaking the nuclear deal – which even U.S. intelligence agreed Iran had stuck to – U.S. media headlines suggest Iran is "threatening" to resume production of nuclear material restricted by the deal. (10/22)

Resuming the nuclear program that had been curbed under a deal the U.S. then broke would seem a logical step for Iran. (Such nuclear work is, in fact, legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.) But the U.S. media is now portraying that option as an escalation. (11/22)

Even after Iran's supreme leader tried to downplay tensions in a speech, NPR immediately reverted to form with the headline: "Aggressive Rhetoric Ramps Up Between U.S. and Iran." What's the aggressive rhetoric from Iran? (12/22)

The portrayal of Iran as the problem player – unpredictable, destabilizing, aggressive – facing off with the rational, rule-bound and pacifying power of the U.S. just isn't borne out by history. European powers see the U.S., not Iran, as the rogue actor in this standoff. (13/22)

The U.S. has done its share to threaten Iran: It encouraged Iraq to invade in the 1980s; invaded Iraq in 2003 and then threatened to invade Iran; sold weapons to Iran's hostile neighbors; and embraced an anti-Iranian terror cult to foment regime change, to mention a few. (14/22)

Yet history has gotten lost amid all the heated rhetoric around the so-called escalating Iranian threat. (15/22)

The NYT recently wrote of the Pentagon's plan: "officials said they believed the most likely cause of a conflict will follow a provocative act ... by the Revolutionary Guards' navy. The Guards' fleet of small boats has a history of approaching American Navy ships." (16/22)

There was no mention of how the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988 without ever publicly issuing a formal apology. 290 civilians were killed. But Iran is the one that's out of control in the Persian Gulf? (17/22)

The Iranian government has much to answer for – most recently, its despicable role in assisting the Assad regime in the mass murder of the originally peaceful Syrian democracy movement. (18/22)

But to accept without question the idea of countering Iran's regional military power with U.S. military power is a media fail. Iran is larger, stronger and more united than Saddam's Iraq ever was, and look at the all-too-predictable consequences of that invasion. (19/22)

Reporters and editors at CNN, NYT and NPR don't want another war in the Middle East. Most know exactly what game the Trump admin is playing. But deep-seated loyalty to what they think is balance or moderation ends up looking like agency capture. (20/22)

Where are the headlines about "Fallout from Trump Nuclear Deal Pullout"? It took UK intel outfits to start calling BS before headers like "Skeptical U.S. Allies Resist Trump's New Claims on Threats from Iran" showed up. (21/22)

Notably, co-author of the latter article is @ewong, who covered the Iraq War from the ground, and recently wrote about how Trump's focus on small countries like Iran and Venezuela is coming at the expense of having a larger strategy for Russia and China. (22/22)