Amidst Election spectacle, US media advocates for war with Iran

While Michigan is focused on the spectacle of the GOP primary today, the Obama administration and much of the national media are pushing for war with Iran.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) noted that earlier this month ABC News ran a story about members of the US intelligence community who believe that Iran is now likely to strike inside the US.

Just a few days ago Simon Tisdall, a reporter for the Guardian, wrote that the government and media hype around Iran is strikingly similar to what the US public heard in the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The comparison of the drums for war with Iran now and the 2003 Iraq invasion is a theme that Al –Jazeera recently explored on one of their TV programs. Al-Jazeera states:

Something sounds familiar. ‘Long-range nuclear missiles’, ‘terrorist sleeper cells’, ‘WMDs’: terms which quickly became part of the media’s vocabulary in the run up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Fast-forward to 2012 and they are featuring heavily once again, only now it is not about Iraq, but Iran. Last time, the media’s saber-rattling followed the Bush administration’s lead in selling the attack on Iraq. This time, the so-called ‘Iranian Threat’ is a narrative being constructed by the US media all by itself – with scant public support from the Obama administration.

Here is a link to the thoughtful Al-Jazeera story.