There’s a bizarre phenomenon common among American journalists whereby they approach U.S. politicians and policymakers with the utmost cynicism, as they should, but take foreign adversaries such as Iran and its proxies at their word. The polarization of national security and U.S. foreign policy in the wake of 9/11 has only exacerbated this concerning trend.
In the aftermath of President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, for example, New York Times’ correspondent Neil MacFarquhar wrote that a million people attended an anti-United States rally in Iran, and reported:
The only problem?
The 1 million figure was an Iranian government estimate, however, Iranians who attended the rally estimated that no more than 200,000 were present, many of whom were state workers forced to attend.
MacFarquhar also obscured the true affiliation of his source: Haghighi was actually a government official as well as a professor. Thus, rather than report honestly or critically on Iran, MacFarquhar allowed the Iranian government to use him to amplify its official propaganda line.
This kind of coverage, unfortunately, is no outlier. The Western press regularly treats Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif with the same credibility. Zarif’s word is reported as trustworthy, even though his track record dating back decades suggests he is an unrepentant liar.
In 2003, for example, it was Zarif — then Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations — who negotiated secretly with senior State Department and National Security Council officials. The group reached a deal in which Iran agreed not to infiltrate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq as the U.S. invaded the country.
The details are summarized here, and covered in greater depth in Dancing with the Devil, a history of U.S. diplomacy with Iran and other “rogue regimes.” Suffice it to say that Zarif lied, even by the admission of the Iranian press. He saw his promises as a means to lull and distract, rather than a commitment to actually implement.
This was not the only time Zarif publicly and clearly lied.
At the height of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s murderous campaign against not only Syrian opposition activists, but also Syria’s majority Sunni Arab population, Zarif swore repeatedly that Iran had no military role in Syria. Even the Iranian press regularly contradicted the spin Zarif peddled to credulous American officials and journalists. And, yet, despite having played U.S. journalists for fools several times, Zarif remains a go-to Iranian celebrity whose words and statements are passed along uncritically and without context.
Journalists’ embrace of Zarif is likely rooted in the liberal media’s animosity to the Trump administration and, more broadly, the Republican foreign policy establishment. Certainly, Trump lies, and lies repeatedly, something the press constantly highlights. Rightfully so, as to shine a light on or otherwise call out the president’s lies is the job of the press.
The only question is why they do not embrace the same standard for Zarif, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
This brings us to the alleged Aug. 25 crash of Israeli drones in Beirut. The New York Times openly sourced its report on the drone’s origins to Hezbollah sources without mentioning that terrorist group’s past unreliability.
Indeed, Hezbollah initially said it shot down the drones before other sources said they crashed on their own. More broadly, while Israel has acknowledged strikes in Syria and while the U.S. government has confirmed Israeli strikes in Iraq, both the Israelis and the U.S. remain mum on what happened in Beirut. Hezbollah, too, wants foreign journalists to trust but not verify. Rather than simply secure the wreckage, Hezbollah rushed to quarantine it.
Imagery and other evidence could easily have established the origin and make of the drones, and journalists should have demanded to see them. Perhaps the drones were Israeli, but they also may very well have contradicted the Hezbollah and New York Times’ narrative (locals in Beirut suggest they had Iranian markings).
Given how both Iran and Hezbollah have used Lebanon as a forward operating base and have bragged previously about suicide drones (not usually Israel’s modus operandi), the possibility that events in Beirut may have been a ‘work place’ incident should at least be considered in initial reports.
New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger has said that his paper will not back down on its reporting about Trump. It should not.
But the New York Times and other papers should hold all politicians — regardless of party, nationality, or ideology — to the same standard, including foreign regimes. The fact that Islamic Republic regime fixers, its senior officials, and even designated terror groups get a freer pass on press scrutiny than U.S. politicians suggests the journalistic method is deeply broken.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
