24/7 Commentary's Impact on Iran Conflict

Decades ago, it was a truism that the 24/7 news cycle exercised a malign influence on policy making. It kept senior leaders fixated on a flickering television screen when their time would have been better spent weighing evidence, debating alternatives, and considering opposing views. All true. But today we contend with 24/7 commentary, which is so ubiquitous that we barely notice it, even as it causes a kind of dry rot of our good judgment. Supporters of the Trump administration’s war against Iran periodically complain that much of the criticism the administration faces is as ludicrous as denouncing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s war leadership in April 1942 would have been, before Midway, Guadalcanal, and the North Africa landings. They have no record of extending that sort of charity to previous administrations, but that does not invalidate the larger point. The 24/7 commentary treadmill means that certain simplifying words get used over and over. But in war, above all things, realities are almost invariably complex. Take the very word war. Advocates and critics of the Iran conflict assume, without question, that this is a war that began on February 28, and that it was launched by President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.