Newspaper Watch: Krauthammer's neo-con spin

Presumably, the Irish Times syndicates Charles Krauthammer's columns because they offer its readers a different point of view. They put forward the point of view of US neo-conservatives, a view that is both relatively unpopular in Ireland – evidenced by the lack of political groups who espouse it – and of interest due to its dominant position in the seats of global power. On the other hand, despite its lack of popularity, the neo-conservative position is extremely common in our media, as so many of our cultural products – from satellite television to Hollywood films – are produced in the US. Furthermore, the pronouncements of US politicians are commonly covered in our indigenous media.

Thus, the decision to carry Krauthammer's articles does not do much in terms of offering us different perspectives on the world. There can scarcely be a newspaper reader in Ireland who is unaware of the neo-conservative agenda at any particular time. And the opinions carried in Krauthammer's pieces can hardly be considered to be genuinely held by neo-conservatives; instead, they are the fairly crude propaganda that the neo-conservatives would like the public to believe.

His most recent column, carried in the Irish Times on Monday 18 September, once again addressed US policy towards Iran – the latest official enemy to appear within the bomb-sights of the neo-conservatives.

Krauthammer argues that the US has two options – the military option or doing nothing – a classic false dilemma. According to Krauthammer, the cost of doing nothing is that "Iran will immediately become the hegemonic power in the Arab Middle East. Today it is deterred from overt aggression against its neighbours by the threat of conventional retaliation. Against a nuclear Iran, such deterrence becomes far less credible."

Iran's only immediate Arab neighbour is Iraq, which is currently occupied by the US military, and most of the other gulf Arab states reside under the umbrella of US protection. The idea that any of these states is militarily threatened by Iran is laughable. The US has a nuclear arsenal some tens of thousands of times more powerful than anything that Iran could produce in a decade – even if there was any evidence that they were doing so, which there isn't. The idea that they would lose their power of deterrence against a nuclear-armed Iran is utterly ridiculous. In fact it is so ridiculous that it is safe to assume that Krauthammer couldn't possibly believe it, and that his article is an exercise in dishonest propaganda.

So, when the Irish Times decides to syndicate his voice, rather than giving space to a different point of view, they are providing a platform for conscious distortions which are designed to expedite another murderous US invasion. It is particularly peculiar to carry such blatantly dishonest propaganda when the paper's editorials have recently pointed out the close parallels between the current tensions over Iran's nuclear programme and the prelude to the invasion of Iraq. On Thursday 14 September, the Irish Times editorial quoted Hans Blix recounting how, "the world was told that the invasion would lead to the 'moment of truth'. It did, and the truth was that there were no weapons of mass destruction." The editorial remarked that these words "remain extraordinarily apposite as the world faces into a similar crisis over Iran's nuclear programme".p