U.S. armed forces have hit more than 170 targets in Iran over the last two days. Iran has fired missiles and drones at Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan after firing at three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
There’s no end in sight.
It sure looks to me like we’re at war again.
And yet U.S. news outlets are not calling it that. Some aren’t even saying the ceasefire has been broken, just “threatened” or “all but shattered.”
This is not a hard one. Donald Trump himself has said the truce is over. Yesterday, asked “Is the ceasefire done?” Trump replied: “To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore.”
Why aren’t our news organizations clearly stating that we’re back where we were before the ceasefire – i.e. at war?
And with nothing to show for it?
I think they’re carrying Trump’s water for him.
Trump is so done with this war. It doesn’t interest him anymore. He realizes it’s a loser issue for him.
And keep in mind that he never really cared about Iran, or its people, or its nuclear ambitions in the first place. What he wanted was another easy victory like the one in Venezuela, which took two hours and 28 minutes. As I wrote a few weeks ago, his only motivation is self-aggrandizement. His only goal is to make himself feel powerful.
And wow did that backfire.
He was so desperate for the war to end that he effectively surrendered three weeks ago. But his folly had so emboldened Iran that it wanted even more.
So the last thing Trump wants is for people to call this a resumption of war.
And the media is obliging him.
As for what happens next, Trump yesterday alternated between threatening to destroy civilian Iranian infrastructure (a war crime) and suggesting that everything would be hunky-dory real soon.
“I don’t think it’s going to start again,” he said after being asked if the war was resuming. “I think anything that happens is going to be over very quickly and will only — and will only make it safer, including for oil. Oil is going to be very free, very easy, and it’s going to happen very fast.”
His only strategy is wishful thinking. (Reminds me of Covid.)
So what should our news organizations be doing?
They need to make it clear that we are right back where we were three weeks ago – at war, and losing it.
They need to explain that Trump is back to his old, failed tactics of denying reality and bullying (then backing down).
They need to remind people that the war was launched unilaterally and illegally. That its goals were never clear. That it has cost taxpayers somewhere around $113 billion so far. That it has led to worldwide economic turmoil. That is has made life even more unaffordable for the American people. That it has killed over a dozen U.S. servicemembers and thousands of Iranians, including seven infants, 376 children and 496 women. That it has strengthened and further emboldened a fanatical regime. That is has done nothing to help the Iranian people. That is has shut down an essential waterway. That it has led U.S. servicemembers, given illegal orders, to commit war crimes.
All to satisfy one deranged man’s ego.
Indeed, perhaps more than anything, news organizations need to be up front about the fact that Donald Trump is mentally unfit for duty. What happens next in Iran is up to an impulsive, volatile, irrational, often incoherent man.
Amazingly enough, Trump himself briefly acknowledged the lunacy of the situation yesterday, during a meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nearby.
Trump was rambling about how he had given worried Iranian leaders assurances that they would not be killed during this week’s funeral ceremonies for assassinated former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Then he chuckled and said: “What a crazy — did you ever think I’d be doing this for a living? Marco? Did anybody ever think I’m doing — maybe Pete, but this wasn’t supposed to be for me. Pete loved this stuff from day one.”
He’s right. It is crazy. He is crazy. And we’re back at war.