Worst war coverage ever

America and Israel began Operation Epic Fury (Rising Lion in Hebrew) by assassinating the Supreme Leader and seven or eight of Iran’s top generals. Then quickly and methodically the two destroyed its air defenses, its air force and its navy. The attacks continue as the duo destroy Iran’s army and its morality police who serve as a Gestapo for an Islamic terrorist regime.

I am in awe of the Pentagon’s and IDF’s systematic destruction of a rogue regime without simultaneously destroying Tehran and the very people we are trying to save. R&D spending has yielded weaponry that is so precise in bombing that lives are spared. I am also overwhelmed by Mossad’s intelligence capabilities.

The Fall of the Wall has begun. 19 days into Operation Epic Fury, Eli David tweeted with video, “Iran’s sun and lion flag has been raised on Iran’s embassy in Copenhagen. Several diplomats at the embassy, including the ambassador himself according to some reports, have applied for asylum in Denmark.”

Yes, there have been civilian deaths—but far fewer than the 40,000 protesters the Islamic Republic killed in January.

Ah, January seems years ago. Back then, Mark Theissen of the Washington Post wrote:

There is no downside to striking the regime. Trump has already done so twice, and each time, Iran was unable or unwilling to retaliate. Indeed, the Soleimani strike came at a time when Iran was much stronger than it is today. Since then, Iran has suffered repeated blows that have left it weaker than at any time since the 1979 revolution.

Its network of terrorist proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis—has been devastated by Israeli and American military strikes. The Assad regime in Syria is no more, depriving Iran of its most significant Arab ally and the arms highway it used to supply its proxies. Thanks to Trump’s restoration of “maximum pressure,” the value of Iran’s currency has fallen to record lows. The Israel Defense Forces has destroyed most of Iran’s air defenses and ballistic missile capabilities, while the U.S. has demolished its nuclear facilities.

In other words, Iran is strategically naked—unable to effectively defend itself against a U.S. strike or respond decisively either directly or by proxy. This gives Trump a historic opportunity to deal the regime a mortal blow. The Iranian regime has bedeviled every American president since Jimmy Carter. It has killed more Americans than any terrorist state. And now it is killing Iranians by the thousands in a desperate attempt to maintain its grip on power. Trump has the ability to obliterate its leaders and its architecture of repression, just as he did its nuclear weapons program. He should do it.

If he does, I predict that before the year is out, he will visit a free Tehran—and receive a hero’s welcome from the Iranian people.

This is how Trump should arrive in Tehran—aboard Lion Force One.

Thiessen is not a token conservative. And he was right.

Days earlier, David Ignatius wrote, “The Iranian regime is caught in a death spiral,” in the same paper.

On January 20, William Galston wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Trump Let Down the Iranian Protesters.”

Ah yes, TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. I get it.

But once President Trump launched Operation Epic Fury, press coverage went cynical. Skepticism is one thing. An objective press should question authority, but what we have today is a press that doesn’t question authority. None dared question cloth masks, social distancing and just why three funerals for George Floyd were safe while I couldn’t hold one for my son.

This war coverage is terrible in part because of demographics. Everyone under 40 was 15 or younger (more than half not even born then) when 9/11 struck. President Bush 43 swore Islam was a religion of peace. The word Islamophobia took over our national conversation in discussing terrorism.

And no one who is not eligible for AARP truly remembers what it felt like when Iranians held 52 hostage for 444 days in violation of every international law.

Which helps explain why in reading the papers, people believe we are in the movie Der Untergang with Bruno Ganz as Hitler Trump. Remember this scene?

But we are not in a movie. This is one of the most impressive military attacks in world history. Anyone should be able to see the anti-American bias. Clinton advisor Mark Penn denounced the New York Times’s psychotic coverage:

President Trump’s complaints about the news coverage of the Iran war are predictable—and entirely justified. “We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning,” he wrote Friday morning on Truth Social. Pick up Sunday’s Times, and it’s as if the editors took that as a command rather than a criticism.

“War Sends More Tremors Through a Shaken World Economy,” reads a headline across the top of the front page, with the speculative subheadline “Fallout From Prolonged Conflict With Iran Could Bring ‘Catastrophic Consequences.’ ” Among the catastrophes the article cites: “In Kenya, tea growers and traders worried their exports to Iran would rot on the dock.” The other story above the front-page fold is a critique of the defense secretary: “Hegseth’s Vengeful Rhetoric Grew From Experience in Iraq.”

Inside the paper are six more pages of war headlines, almost all relentlessly negative. There are disdainful pieces about the secretary of state (“For Trump and Rubio, It’s Destroy and Deal”) and about the central U.S. ally in the effort (“U.S. War Alliance with Israel Is Reshaping Mideast, but Carries Risk” and “Netanyahu Has War He Always Wanted, but on Trump’s Terms”). There’s more economic gloom (“Seized Oil Tankers Are Costing U.S. Tens of Millions” and “Oil Price Surge Rattles Weak Pakistan Economy”).

I remember Vice President Henry Wallace (later replaced by Truman) advising FDR against entering World War 2 for fear of what would happen to oil prices in Pakistan—said absolutely no one.

Penn and his co-author Andrew Stein wrote, “Largely absent are even the most basic stories analyzing Iran’s losses and the fate of their supposed leadership. Why? What seems to be driving the coverage is reportorial partisanship and the Democrats’ determination to oppose this president no matter what he does. We’ll see, again, how that works out for them.”

Victor Davis Hanson’s response to the media mirrored Penn and any other reasonable person:

But it’s a very surreal war. I haven’t seen—I don’t think any of us have seen—anything like it. It’s only been two weeks and we’re told that it’s dragging on, that it’s a forever war, that we’re losing, that the Pentagon and the Trump administration had no plans. And yet when you look at Iran, this huge country—much, much bigger and with a much larger population than Iraq or Afghanistan—it has no military left.

The Navy is dismantled. The Air Force is dismantled. The Republican Guard—all of these special contingents—are under enormous assault. The command and control is destroyed. The missile defense is destroyed. And yet people say that it’s unconquerable. It doesn’t make any sense. Its output of missiles and drones at the Gulf petrol states and Israel has dropped by 90%.

Hanson blamed part of it on the Pentagon not embedding reporters. I hate to disagree but reporters are too untrustworthy to embed. On October 15, about 50 Pentagon reporters turned in their press badges because War Consigliere Pete Hegseth wouldn’t let them roam the halls of the Pentagon without an escort.

X has communiques with embedded Iranians. From Nioh Berg:

My mom just called me from Iran through her landline. I haven’t spoken to her since February.

She said that Israel and the US are bombing the regime nonstop.

They taped all the windows because the building shakes constantly.

I asked if any civilians are getting hurt, and she replied “No, No, No. No normal civilians are getting hurt”

Everyone is hanging in there and counting the days for this regime to end and for the return of the Shah.

And there was this tweet from Trent Telenko:

Consider that there have been multiple reports of local Iranians rushing into bombed police stations immediately after the bombings to sieze guns.

Almost as if they were told the attack was coming ahead of time

It’s amazing what our technology is doing in sparing innocents. The American press is ignoring this phenomenal development.

But Hanson’s comparison of Operation Epic Fury to the very similar rescue of Kuwait from Iraq was spot on:

When you look at the first Gulf War, it was 42 days, but only four days were on the ground. It was a magnificent victory, but about 300 people were killed. That was considered amazing at the time.

They overran the country, but it took 42 days to disable it. They left Saddam Hussein in power and had to go back. That was considered a stellar success. But this is a much more dramatic victory. We’ve only been here two weeks and the much more formidable enemy is in shambles.

Bush 41’s resolve matched Trump’s. The huge difference was technology and our alliance with a worthy ally that could carry its own weight and provide a superior intelligence operation.

The biggest advantage Bush had was a press that still had patriots.

But that was 35 years ago.