As Democratic senators declared their support for the deal struck between Iran and six world powers—an agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—corporate media coverage of this momentum is leaving out at least one crucial detail: the lack of evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
A New York Times article (9/2/15) cited two main reasons for why many Democrats were persuaded to support the Iran deal: 1) the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has technology that “could catch even the most minute trace amounts of radioactive material, and help expose any cheating on the deal by Iran,” and 2) the senators “heard from experts who said that a 15-year limit on fissile material, the makings of a nuclear weapon, would do more to slow Iran’s production of a nuclear weapon than a military attack.”
Reporters Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn could have pointed out, as James Risen and Mark Mazzetti did on the Times‘ front page three years ago (2/24/12; FAIR.org, 2/9/15), that “American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.” Or quoted, as Seymour Hersh did (New Yorker, 6/6/11), longtime IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s statement that he had not seen “a shred of evidence” that Iran was trying to weaponize its uranium. Or at least included, as basic balance, the fact that Iran had consistently maintained that it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon (FAIR.org, 9/30/13).
None of this stopped USA Today‘s Erin Kelly (9/2/15) from describing the deal as an effort to “curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions”—a phrasing that assumes such ambitions exist. Or to summarize the deal by saying it “calls for the United States to lift economic sanctions against Iran in return for Iran’s agreement not to develop nuclear weapons”; if that were all Iran had to do, the agreement could have been reached years ago, as Iran has long insisted they don’t want an atomic bomb. (The deal actually severely restricts Iran’s ability to enrich uranium to levels that are useful for nuclear power and medical applications.)
The Washington Post (9/2/15) also had an uncritical reference to “Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” It said opponents objected to the deal because it “doesn’t do enough to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and, at best, only delays its pathway to becoming an armed nuclear state.” Again, there was no mention of the widespread doubts or Iran’s vociferous denials that that nation is seeking a nuclear weapon.
When the Post turned to give proponents’ view of the deal, reporters Karoun Demirjian and Carol Morello wrote: “But Obama and his proxies have argued that the deal is the best agreement they could have secured, that there is no alternative to it but war with Iran.” In other words, if the deal with Iran fails, then the US must go to war with Iran, because war is the only means to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. So the entire spectrum of debate allowed by the Post accepts an Iranian quest for an atomic bomb as an article of faith—and the “left” edge of the debate endorses the legitimacy of preemptive war (FAIR.org, 8/20/15).
Gunar Olsen is an editorial intern at FAIR and a student at Fordham University.
steve
This is the most surrealistic run-up to disaster that I’ve seen in my short (67years) life. Candidate Hillary says she’ll attack Iran if she were president and suspected that they were breaking the proposed treaty; Obama poses passage as the only alternative to war. And they’re the “leaders” of the liberal half of the duopoly.
When we were led to war in Iraq, Bush felt the need to invent reasons to do so, from WMDs to yellow cake uranium to mistreatment of the Kurdish community. With Iran, we have nothing; apparently, it’s no longer felt necessary to come with several Big Lies to justify invasions and bombings in violation of international law.
Is the current default position of the US one that answers any perceived or imagined possible threat to Israel with military attacks against the “enemy?” Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The US government cowardly refuses to acknowledge what they already know and what is an essential element to understanding the middle east.
What has Iran done that puts war so close to reality? Those in congress and the white house who push this evil result appear to be clueless as they shamelessly call for the organized murder of our next victims.
Is there no end to US terrorism? We have become a war state and seem to know no other way to interact with other cultures and peoples.
dieter heymann
Thanks for pointing out the truth. There has a always been and there still is a way to prevent this war in principle without the current agreement. It is to warn Israel that an unprovoked attack on Iran will have very serious consequences. The problem with that route is that a next president, Democratic or Republican, may rescind that warning.
The principal reasons why there is this agreement are twofold. One: to get Netanyahu off the back of the world. Two: to throttle Iran’s capacity to export gas and oil by severely slowing its development of nuclear power production.
Alex Cox
Unfortunately the development of nuclear energy is almost always a pretext for the development of nuclear weapons. Even countries like Japan, which are heavily invested in nuclear power but have not yet developed nuclear bombs, are well on the road to doing so should they so desire. Unfortunately nation states have the right to do whatever the heck they choose – developing nuclear bombs is one of these things. The Saudis already have access to Pakistani nukes; Emirates are developing nuclear power plants; so it’s somewhat fantastist to pretend that Iran’s nuclear aspirations are entirely pacific, or that they will always be so.