In the early days of the war, the White House dismissed the idea that Iran had had any success in retaliating. Yet international relations experts told the media that US bases in the Middle East had all been “severely damaged or destroyed”, a claim later confirmed. The Washington Post Investigation
This puts a question mark on the American version of recent events. This past weekend, the truce looked more like a charade than ever. The US tried to take ships through the Strait of Hormuz and they were attacked by Iran. The US responded by attacking nearby Iranian radar installations.
But instead of engaging in tit-for-tat domestically, Iran escalated its attacks on US allies across the region. Ballistic missiles hit Kuwait and Bahrain.
Iran has previously warned that it would respond with a ratio of 1.5 to 1 in the event of future attacks. In other words, they will not match but exceed attacks from the US and Israel.
An attack on Kuwait’s international airport was dramatic. There were more than 60 casualties (link shows video of the aftermath of the strike).
The US military then posted a “fact check” below. He denied Iranian claims that US bases had been targeted, but ignored the attack on the Bahrain airport.
The next day, the US posted about successfully intercepting all Iranian missiles fired that day. Clearly, media releases are not a balanced representation of events.
In other words, we are in a wartime information environment.
This is especially true of Israel. Iran launched a direct attack on Israel two days ago, but there is no clear estimate of the damage. Professor John Mearsheimer, a decades-long expert on Israeli foreign policy, described its military censorship as the harshest ever.
The cumulative effect of all this is that the information environment reduces Iran’s agency and ambitions.
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