On July 7, the New York Times produced an alarming headline: “Iran Announces New Breach of Nuclear Deal Limits and Threatens Further Violations.” The “breach,” we were told — which would enable the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium above the 3.67 percent limit set by the 2015 deal — “inches Iran closer to where it was before the accord: on the path to being able to produce an atomic bomb.” To hell, then, with the assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had been on no such path.
Other media outlets blared similar alerts. CBS News went with the headline “Iran ignores Trump’s warning, breaks another nuclear deal limit on uranium enrichment,” while the Associated Press opted for “Iran breaches key uranium enrichment limit in nuclear deal.” Politico spotlighted Iran’s “brazen move” in a dispatch titled “Trump will have to settle on a strategy after Iran violates 2015 nuclear deal,” and the New York Post editorial board charmingly contended that, because Iran is “asking for more pain by violating” the accord, “the correct response is to hit Tehran even harder.” A July 11 Newsweek op-ed fretted that “Iran’s nuclear clock is ticking once again” and advised the United States to prepare “military exercises for neutralizing Iran’s nuclear facilities and missiles.”
But wait a minute. How do you breach, violate, or break an accord that the United States already destroyed by unilaterally withdrawing from it last year? And why is the character that spearheaded the withdrawal allowed to issue warnings on the subject?
Granted, most of the articles on the “breach” do manage to mention Donald Trump’s abandonment of the accord. But this rather crucial factoid is apparently deemed not overly relevant to the overall story — which seems to be whatever the Trump administration says it is.
So much for speaking truth to power. And while Trump can foam at the mouth all he wants about the US media’s alleged hostility, they’re clearly not doing a very good job of it. READ MORE AT JACOBIN.