The Demise Of Chris Wallace Into A Mouthpiece For War – OpEd

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Sixteen years after fueling the illegal war on Iraq on false pretexts, US network Fox TV is once again playing its destructive role, albeit with more nuances, by following Israel’s march to war order, piling accusations against Iran and pressing President Trump to attack Iran. 

Devoid of slightest objectivity in its news reports on Iran, Fox TV’s jingoistic war-making role makes a mockery of free and independent press and is a reminder of how American wars are made through incessant propaganda filtered through the mainstream media.   

Indeed, this much is clear in the behavior of Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday program, who has set aside all pretensions of objective journalism by criticizing Trump for not having “the stomach” to attack Iran after Trump reportedly reversed himself on air strike following Iran’s downing a US spy plane on its territorial waters. 

Dispensing with the question of whether or not Iran had the legal right to defend itself and shoot down the unmanned plane violating its territorial sovereignty, Wallace has insisted that any US retaliatory strike on Iran would have been justified, claiming simultaneously that Iran has been behind the recent attacks on oil tankers in May and June.     

Concerning both allegations, suffice to say that (a) Iran’s salvage of the plane’s wreckage in its waters is further proof that it was not shot down in international air space as claimed by the US navy, (b) Russia has offered intelligence proof that the plane was indeed flying over Iran’s territory, (c) Japanese crew of one of the attacked ships have contradicted the US’s story about attached mines, citing projectiles, and (d) now even officials of the UAE have come forward admitting that Iran was not the culprit in the May attack on four tankers. 

Of course, if Chris Wallace had an iota of objectivity about him he would have raised a very pertinent question: Who benefited from sabotaging Japan’s Prime Minister’s peace mission to Iran by targeting a Japanese cargo ship in Gulf of Oman while he was meeting Iran’s spiritual leader? 

The only viable answer is US and its allies, namely, Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Naturally, the word “false flag” did not appear in Chris Wallace’s coverage of the incident, considered a taboo since it exposes the sinister hands engaged in relentless conspiracy against Iran in order to sow the seeds of the next war.   

Needless to say, this is biased and irresponsible media journalism on the part of Chris Wallace, the proud son of late Mike Wallace, the legendary “60 Minutes” correspondent, who in fact once publicly shook his head in disbelief that his son had switched from ABC News to Fox.  The elder Wallace must be shivering in his grave now that Chris has self-inflicted serious wounds on his own reputation, as one of America’s most trusted TV personalities, by succumbing to rabid Iranophobia orchestrated by the much-despised Jon Bolton, the National Security Adviser. 

In appeasing the US and Israeli warmongers, Wallace has turned his popular Sunday show into a forum for spreading Iranophobia, by for example giving open microphone to an ardently pro-Israel senator, Tom Cotton, who has received millions of dollars in campaign contribution from the pro-Israel lobby and is now leading the Congressional march for a war on Iran. 

Thus, instead of trying to counterbalance Cotton’s extremely biased views by inviting another guest, Wallace confined himself to interviewing Cotton, which he began by parroting the line that Iran had attacked the ships in Gulf of Oman.  As expected, it did not occur to Wallace to pose the question to Cotton if from the prism of international law Iran had the legal right to shoot down a spy airplane on its territory conducting espionage?     

To open a caveat here, on a personal level this author, who in the past has worked with both Mike and Chris Wallace on Iran programs, and who facilitated Chris’s recent interview with Iran’s foreign minister, is sad and dismayed by Chris’s opportunistic embrace of the anti-Iran war project vigorously pushed by the Israeli government and some elements of the Trump administration. 

In comparison, Tucker Smith, another Fox TV host, has been the lone voice of reason on Iran, hailing Trump’s wise decision not to launch a limited attack on Iran — that would have easily snowballed into a major regional warfare threatening the world economy. 

But, even Smith has been silent on the illegal economic war against Iran waged by Trump, which contains the seeds of war, by strangulating a nation’s economy and cornering the Iranians. This is tantamount to a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, as Iran is bound sooner or later to resort to its (region-wide) hard power to respond to the unlawful economic war, which is in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. 

Also, as indicated in this author’s recent article published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Trump administration is apt to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran in order to achieve a decisive victory in a war scenario. 

The threat of a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf is all too real and cannot be ignored by the international community. But, of course, from the prism of US warmongers, which now include Chris Wallace, there is nothing particularly alarming or morally abhorrent even about this nightmare scenario.  The Trump administration, which has inflicted a long-term damage on US’s global image by running filthy concentration camps at Mexican borders is about to go to war with Iran, aided by the likes of Wallace selling their soul to the evil empire, threatening global peace and security.

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Ph.D. is an Iranian-American political scientist and author specializing in Iran’s foreign and nuclear affairs, and author of several books.

One thought on “The Demise Of Chris Wallace Into A Mouthpiece For War – OpEd

  • August 18, 2019 at 11:24 pm
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    I think you mean Tucker Carlson. Tucker Smith is a deceased actor.

    Reply

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