Iran or Trump? Establishment Media Seems to Have Picked a Side

Opposing any president’s policies is one thing. That anyone can do so with impunity is critical in a free society. But how about rooting for a foreign regime that is a sworn enemy just because one doesn’t like the political philosophy of that president? It seems extreme to hope for defeat, just so that one can gloat, even though that defeat might potentially put the entire country in mortal danger. And yet, that is where the establishment media in America appears to be with respect to Iran. They would rather shill for a brutal and repressive theocracy – that represents everything they claim to abhor – than concede even an inch to a president they have, in their minds, transformed into a monster.

It’s not really elected Democrats, so much as the wider leftist “resistance,” that has seemingly chosen a side in the Iran conflict. Congressional Democrats are trying, of course, to pillory President Donald Trump for ordering military action against the mullahs in Tehran. The problem for them is that, in the past, prominent Democrats – including Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer – went on the record expressing their willingness to strike Iran or their wish for regime change in that country.

Sen. Schumer (D-NY) even publicly opposed the deal that then-President Barack Obama and the Iranian regime signed, supposedly preventing the latter from pursuing a nuclear arsenal.

American Media Plays Mouthpiece for Iran

The criticism of Trump’s Iran strategy is couched, though. It’s not that any left-leaning journalists working at prominent media organizations are going to openly cheer for Iran. It’s more a combination of criticizing the president’s approach, while at the same time giving oxygen to Iran’s state media or other pro-Iran sources.

For example, the White House attacked CNN after the network broadcast Iranian propaganda: “Fake news CNN just aired four straight minutes of uninterrupted Iranian state TV, run by the same psychotic and murderous regime that prided itself on brutally slaughtering Americans for 47 years.”

The predominant narrative from the anti-Trump side is that Iran posed no “imminent threat” to the United States. By that logic, America should not have sent troops to fight in Europe against Hitler’s armies that posed no imminent threat.

When one is charged with the duty of protecting an entire nation, it is best to neutralize threats before the threat is carried out, rather than react after the fact. There is no doubt in the mind of any serious observer that, given the time, the finances, and the resources, Iran most definitely would have created a nuclear arsenal that almost certainly would have been deployed or at the very least used as a threat.

The tragedy of it all is that there can be little doubt that no American journalists or political pundits genuinely want Iran to come out on top in this conflict. Rather, they want Trump to fail – to be humiliated and ridiculed. And, unfortunately, they want that so badly that they would accept an Iranian victory to achieve it.

It’s a very sad and dangerous mindset. We don’t really want the regime that is sworn to our destruction to win, but we are ok with it if it means the president we hate loses. It would be the ultimate pyrrhic victory for Trump’s detractors: The Iranians may now be capable of launching nuclear-tipped warheads at us, but at least Trump didn’t get the credit for doing something good.