In the early days of the war, the White House played down the notion that Iran had any success in retaliating. Yet international relations academics told media that US bases in the Middle East were all “badly damaged or destroyed”, a claim that was later substantiated by a Washington Post investigation.
This puts a question mark on American versions of recent events. This past weekend, the ceasefire looked more of a charade than ever. The US sought to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz and these were attacked by Iran. The US responded by attacking Iranian radar installations nearby.
But instead of participating in a localised tit-for-tat, Iran escalated massively, attacking US allies across the region. Ballistic missiles hit Kuwait and Bahrain.
Iran had previously warned that it would respond at a 1.5 to 1 ratio in the event of future attacks. In other words, they would not match the strikes they received from the US and Israel but exceed them.
One strike dramatically hit Kuwait’s international airport. There were over 60 casualties (link shows video of strike’s aftermath).
The US military then posted a “fact check”, as below. It refuted Iranian claims that US bases had been hit, but ignored the hit on Bahrain’s airport.
The next day, the US posted about successfully intercepting all Iranian missiles launched that day. Clearly, releases to the media are not a balanced representation of events.
In other words, we are in a wartime information environment.
This is most especially true in regard to Israel. Iran struck Israel directly two days ago, but there is no clear sense of the damage caused. Professor John Mearsheimer, a decades-long expert in Israeli foreign policy, described its military censorship now as the tightest he has ever seen it.
The overall effect of all of this is that the information environment downplays Iran’s agency and ambition.
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