NYT Propagandist David Sanger's War on Iran

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

In the run-up to Bush/Cheney's aggression on Iraq, a virtual Noar's Ark of scam artists promoted it.

They included NYT columnist Judith Miller — reproducing near-daily front-page Pentagon press release propaganda reports, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Big Lies and deception.

When it comes to Iran, Times national security correspondent David Sanger plays a similar role. Militantly hostile to the country, he wrote numerous propaganda reports, hyping a nonexistent WMD threat.

Earlier he ignored clear evidence that Iran's nuclear program has no military component, repeatedly affirmed by IAEA monitors. 

Even annual US intelligence community assessments of world threats said no evidence suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program or known intent to have one.

Sanger operates as a virtual Israeli Lobby press agent, repeating its anti-Iran propaganda, AIPAC falsely calling the Islamic Republic "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism…Israel's and America's greatest long-term threat in the Middle East."

Like Netanyahu's Big Lies, AIPAC suggests Iran covertly aims to develop nuclear weapons it abhors, doesn't seek, and wants eliminated everywhere.

AIPAC, Sanger, the broadsheet he works for, and other imperial press agents are silent about nuclear armed and dangerous Israel, the only Middle East nation with these WMDs and intent to use them if greatly threatened.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern earlier slammed Sanger, saying "(m)any will remember him as one of the Times' stenographers/cheerleaders for the Bush/Cheney attack on Iraq in March 2003."

He's a longtime anti-Iran hawk, never letting facts interfere with his managed news misinformation and disinformation reports on the country.

The late Edward Herman slammed his propaganda rubbish on Iran, saying his earlier front-page feature article headlined "Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms" was a "virtual perfect model of propaganda service," adding:

"The frame of Sanger's article is the (nonexistent) threat of the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, the efforts to contain that threat via diplomacy, the difficulties encountered in these efforts, US and Israeli concerns over the matter, and the opinions of Western officials and experts over what should be done."

Sources for Sanger's disinformation were current and earlier US (anti-Iran) officials, reliable independent voices excluded.

His "premise is that the United States and Israel are good and do not pose threats worthy of mention, so that any 'advance' in nuclear arms, or the possession and threat of use of such weapons by these states, is outside the realm of discourse," Herman stressed. 

A second Sanger "premise (was and remains) that the United States has the right to decide who can and cannot have nuclear arms and to compel the disarmament of any country that acquires them."

Like countless other establishment media reporters, Sanger operates as a press agent for powerful US, other Western, and Israeli interests, truth-telling suppressed in his propaganda pieces.

He's one-sidedly hostile toward Iran and other nations on the US target list for regime change. His recent reports on the Islamic Republic read like State Department press releases.

On June 10, he headlined, "Inspectors Say Iran Is Increasing Production of Nuclear Fuel," saying:

It's "following through on a threat to begin walking away from restrictions agreed to in a 2015 nuclear accord that President Trump has abandoned."

He quoted Pompeo warning about an Iranian "break out" to produce a (nuclear) weapon in less than a year…"

Ignored in his propaganda piece was Iran's compliance with its JCPOA obligations. Because of the failure of Britain, France, and Germany to fulfill theirs, it suspended some of its voluntary commitments, relating to enrichment and storage of uranium and heavy water — its legal right under JCPOA articles 26 and 36.

On June 13, Sanger and Edward Wong said "Iran…is escalating nuclear production," its legal right. They quoted former US official William Burns, saying "(i)f the Iranians were responsible for the attacks on shipping in the gulf, it is reckless and dangerous" — instead of stressing no evidence suggests it.

Sanger and Wong pushed the myth of an Iranian threat that doesn't exist. Repeating the Big Lie endlessly gets most people to believe it.

In his latest propaganda piece together with David Kirkpatrick, Sanger claimed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps wants the JCPOA abandoned.

Though taking this step is opposed by its ruling authorities, Sanger and Kirkpatrick suggested maybe this is where things are heading, implying an Iranian threat that doesn't exist, ignoring the real regional threat posed by the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners.

Sanger's articles on Iran omit mention of the illegality of unilaterally imposed sanctions and other hostile US actions on Iran.

Nor is it explained that the Islamic Republic never attacked another nation, threatens none now, and is the region's leading peace and stability proponent, seeking cooperative relations with other countries.

Because of its sovereign independence free from US control, opposition to its wars of aggression, and support for Palestinian rights, Iran is on the US target list for regime change.

All of the above is unexplained by Sanger, other Times correspondents, contributors and editors.

Iran is falsely portrayed as a regional threat, polar opposite reality, the real threat posed by the US and its imperial partners ignored.

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