Media Workers Against the War

The BBC’s agenda-setting news broadcast is swallowing propaganda for war on Iran as if Iraq had never happened

By Dave Crouch

June 4, 2006

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq the British media – with a few honourable exceptions – accepted the essential premise for war set out by Bush and Blair. Saddam was a serious threat, having armed himself with weapons of mass destruction with a delivery time of 45 minutes. The revelation that the WMD threat was ‘sexed up’ by US and UK governments that had already decided to go to war ought to have inured editors to the deliberately manipulative way in which governments sell war to the public.

But now the media are swallowing the same propaganda for war on Iran as if Iraq had never happened. Radio 4’s flagship morning broadcast, Today, is an example of the general trend. Its coverage of Iran in April and May has paid lip service of ‘balance’ while presenting the debate over Iran in such a way as to legitimise a US military response. On some days that coverage has been a travesty of balance. On Thursday 13 April, for example, Today devoted over half an hour to Iran. The broadcast: Presented without challenge or qualification lengthy comment on Iran from figures known to have played crucial roles in preparing the ground for the Iraq invasion; Made no attempt to explain the Middle-Eastern context in which the belligerency of the US administration and its allies has strengthened conservative elements in Iran;

Allowed contributors to make alarmist statements unchallenged about the Iranian ‘threat’ on the basis of pure speculation;

Contributed to strengthening the notion among listeners that Iran poses a danger that must be dealt with aggressively by the West.

Today wheeled out a series of US and UK government figures deeply implicated in the invasion of Iraq, including the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, and the UK’s former UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Today also gave free voice to Reza Pahlavi, son of the ousted Shah of Iran.

An intervention in search of a threat

The programme’s presenters repeated the myth that ‘ Iran is committed to wiping Israel off the map’ and allowed their guests to make alarmist statements about ‘dirty bombs’ and ‘state-sponsored terrorism’ unchallenged.

MWAW put these points in detail to Today, and deputy editor Gavin Allen replied. He made the obvious points that Today does not necessarily share the opinions of its guests, and that it is unfair to pick on one broadcast: ‘Across a range of programmes I’m confident that listeners can and do hear the range and breadth of the debate.’

Today ’s listeners have indeed heard from Seymour Hersh, Hans Blix and the Iranian ambassador to the UN on other editions. But this in no way restores balance to the programme’s Iran coverage.

First, the fundamental, guiding assumption of Today’s coverage is that Iran is a problem and something must be done about it. It is taken as common sense that Iran is a dangerous theocratic state with an irrational and unstable political and clerical leadership that has supported terrorists and threatened Israel and is therefore not to be trusted with a nuclear programme.

Today doesn’t even acknowledge the respectable and widespread notion that Iran is example of ‘blowback’ from US policies in the Middle East. The programme has ignored the fact that Israel has hundreds of nuclear warheads, and that US attitudes to nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan and North Korea strongly suggest double standards on Iran.

Unrepresentative representatives

The result is that Today has left the case against military action to be put by establishment figures such as Madeleine Albright and Prince Hassan of Jordan. The academic commentators on the programme are typified by Timothy Garton Ash, a man whose self-confessed ‘tortured liberal ambivalence’ on Iraq sums up the hopeless weakness of his comments on Iran.

So Today’s coverage is ‘balanced’ only in that it represents different sides of a debate taking place within the establishment. Finally, and most disturbingly – despite the obvious similarities – Today fails to draw any parallels between the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and the current crisis over Iran.

Iran is not the problem – or rather, Iran is a problem for peace and stability only in so far as the US and Britain have created that problem through their century-long history of bloody intervention in Iran and across the Middle East.

Until the BBC wakes up to this fact we can expect its coverage of Iran to fall far short of the standards expected of a public service broadcaster.