On Iran Policy, America Is Not 'the World'

By Peter Hart 

Sometimes it's the little things that say a lot. And when PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill and correspondent Margaret Warner (11/5/14) were discussing  various consequences of the midterm elections, this part caught my ear:

IFILL: OK, second area, hot spot, Iran, where there's been long ongoing discussion about sanctions and that coming to a head as well.

WARNER: Absolutely, November 24. Secretary Kerry and his Iranian counterpart have been working for nearly a year now. November 24 is the deadline to come up with a deal that would restrict Iran's nuclear program, persuade the world it wasn't going to get weapons, in return for lifting sanctions.

There is not a disagreement between Iran and "the world." A small number of countries–the United States being the most powerful one–have made a variety of claims for the past several years about Iran possibly concealing a weapons program. There is no public evidence to support the most extreme accusation, but it doesn't seem to matter; Iran is under stiff sanctions, and US lawmakers want to hit them even harder.

The actual "world"–if you think the word means most of the people living on the planet, or at least the governments that represent them–has a very different view of the nuclear negotiations. They support Iran's right to enrich uranium.

This is reminiscent of the time NBC's David Gregory declared (FAIR Blog,7/14/14) that Iran's enrichment program was an issue that unites the world:

The international community is divided about a lot of things. They're actually not divided about one thing. They think Iran is up to no good and wants to build a nuclear weapon.

His guest, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, tried to clarify:  "It's not the international community. It's a few countries that have concerns."

Or last year, when PBS reporter Ray Suarez remarked (FAIR Blog, 10/18/13) remarked that the "rest of the world" was sending a message to Iran that we "don't want you to enrich" uranium.

As FAIR noted then:

The Non-Aligned Movement–an organization representing 120 countries and more than half the world's population–has consistently backed Iran's right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program (Antiwar.com, 8/31/12).

It's a small but revealing glimpse at elite media's worldview when it comes to US foreign policy: The "world" is what we make it.

http://fair.org/blog/2014/11/07/on-iran-policy-america-is-not-the-world/