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 Iraq 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.
– Peter Hart, FAIR
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