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Fox News Hosts Scapegoat NATO For Trump's Botching Of Iran War

Fox News Hosts Scapegoat NATO For Trump's Botching Of Iran War

Fox News’ MAGA stars, unable to acknowledge that the war in Iran that President Donald Trump launched with their support is spiralling into a strategic defeat, have landed on a scapegoat: NATO and its member states, which were not consulted by the United States before it joined Israel in starting the war and have since refused participation.

Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity respectively denounced NATO on Wednesday as “kind of a meaningless ally” that “we’ve had it with” for purportedly “abandoning us.” Hannity and Ingraham each suggested that Trump should withdraw the U.S. from the alliance (which he is barred from doing unilaterally under a bill Secretary of State Marco Rubio cosponsored in the Senate that became law in 2023).

Trump has spent the last several weeks raging over the refusal by U.S. allies to send their navies into the active war zone to escort oil tankers and other commercial ships after Iran, in an obvious strategic countermeasure to the U.S. attack, closed the Strait of Hormuz. Over the weekend, Spain, Italy, and France refused to allow their military bases or airspace to be used by U.S. or Israeli aircraft involved in the war, triggering a new wave of vitriol from the president and his top aides.

Trump claimed in a Wednesday interview to be “beyond reconsideration” of the U.S. role in NATO after “they weren’t there for us” in Iran. (NATO is a defensive alliance — in response to the 9/11 attacks, its members deployed forces alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan but are not bound by the treaty to participate in offensive wars.) In an address from the White House that night, the president urged the “countries of the world” to “build up some delayed courage. … Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves.”

The looming strategic failure of the U.S. war in Iran — its regime is intact and in control of its uranium stockpile and the strait, and altering those circumstances that would likely require a risky escalation involving American ground troops — has placed Fox’s hosts in a bind. They have assured their viewers that the war is an historic success and appear unable to break with Trump due to his support among their viewers. That makes our NATO allies an appealing target as the war grinds on.

The president regularly tunes in to Fox to guide his communication and policy decisions. If he was watching before or after his speech on Wednesday, he heard vigorous support for pivoting from his inability to defeat America’s foes to punishing its friends.

Hannity: NATO is “a one-sided alliance,” by leaving “we'll probably save a lot of money”

Hannity, of the network’s three major evening hosts, is the one most committed to the U.S. war in Iran (which he had demanded for decades), the closest personally to Trump, and the loudest voice currently denouncing NATO.

Following Trump’s speech, he panned NATO as “a one-sided alliance where we only go and protect Europe” and suggested its member states had become too culturally Muslim. In response, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) uncorked a screed in which he called for the redeployment of U.S. forces from Europe because “when we needed them the most and when the world needed them the most to stop a religious Nazi regime from having a nuclear breakout, they took a pass.”

“I think that there's going to be a reevaluation and I believe America's contribution just went down dramatically, and we'll know more in the weeks ahead as this now begins to wrap up,” Hannity replied.

Later in the broadcast, the host said it was “unimaginable to me that the NATO alliance would shatter” thanks to the purported refusal by its members to agree to what “should not be a controversial assist on their part.”

“I've got to imagine the ramifications of them abandoning us in this effort is going to — this is going to be deep, profound, and long-lasting,” he added.

Fox contributor Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state in Trump’s first administration, characterized NATO as “feckless, not to be able to convince their own people” of the importance of the Iran war, while retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, another former Trump administration figure, said the U.S. should withdraw from the alliance and form a new one.

“Yeah, I think you're right and we'll probably save a lot of money,” Hannity replied to Kellogg. “But the fact that they did not have a moral clarity when you're dealing with the No. 1 state sponsor of terror potentially this close to acquiring nuclear weapons is breathtaking to me. And this will have reverberations, I believe, going on for decades to come.”

Ingraham: NATO is “kind of a meaningless ally” due to “weakness in Europe”

Ingraham had recently warned about potential downsides of the war, but quickly pivoted back in line with her colleagues. While previewing Trump’s speech on Wednesday’s broadcast, she claimed that “NATO turned out, in this case at least, to be what Donald Trump had predicted: kind of a meaningless ally, if allies at all.”

Her guest, the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano, responded with the evening’s most vigorous defense of the alliance. “I don't think NATO is the problem,” he said, instead pointing to “some very weak leaders inside NATO who have made some very cowardly decisions” and “look like complete yahoos.”

“What we're going to see is not NATO disbanded,” Carafano. “That's nuts. But what we're more likely to see is NATO step back up to the plate under pressure from Donald Trump, and countries throw out their own leaders because they’re weak-kneed yahoos.”

But Ingraham responded by saying that disbanding NATO should be on the table.

“Well, I'm not sure I agree with that,” she replied. “I think there's just a lot of weakness in Europe, period. Period, there's weakness. … We're so lucky we have Donald Trump as president of the United States.”

Watters: “We’ve had it with these people”

Watters joined in the NATO criticism on Wednesday, albeit in a somewhat less aggressive tone than his colleagues.

“The NATO allies, I put allies in quotes,” he said. “I mean, it's been a great alliance over the years. It's really kept the Russians off the continent until the Ukraine invasion. But it's been really one-sided, and now a lot of people are looking around at them saying no, you can't use the airspace. You can't use the base.”

“They've had it,” he added. “We've had it with these people. We love them, but we've had it.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Laura Ingraham

Fox News' United Front Supporting Trump's Iran War May Be Breaking Down

Four weeks after President Donald Trump launched a poorly conceived war of choice against Iran, the lockstep support for the conflict that has characterized coverage from Fox News’ star hosts is beginning to fray. The power struggle is significant — it is not an exaggeration to suggest the course of the war might hinge on which Fox shows the president is watching.

Trump is clearly approaching a decision point over whether to further escalate the war. U.S. and Israeli forces have done a lot of damage to Iranian military targets, but its regime is intact, still controls its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and has closed the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the global trade in oil, natural gas, and fertilizer. The Pentagon is sending thousands of troops to the region and reportedly prepping options for a “final blow” — some of which would involve deploying U.S. forces on Iranian soil.

When Trump is considering policy options, he often takes guidance from his loyal propagandists at Fox. This Fox-Trump feedback loop has in recent months played a role in the president’s decisions to send White House border czar Tom Homan to oversee immigration enforcement in Minnesota; prioritize the SAVE Act over all other legislation; order the deployment of ICE agents to airports; and start the war against Iran.

Against that backdrop, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned on Wednesday’s show that further U.S. action could produce devastating unintended consequences and suggested that Trump should refocus his attention on the domestic economy and political situation.

“Iran knows it cannot win militarily, so it's using the leverage it has by prolonging the conflict,” she said during her monologue at the top of the show. “Now, what do they want to do? They want to inflict maximum economic pain on the region, on the U.S., [on] the global economy as much as possible until they think Trump relents. But the White House doesn't seem to be blinking.”

The host then aired a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warning at her press briefing that day that “President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell” against Iran.

Ingraham did not seem impressed by Leavitt’s rhetoric.

“Well, the problem is obviously unleashing hell means destroying infrastructure, which itself causes a series of cascading problems for the region, including maybe outside the region — political problems for the president in a midterm election year,” she said.

Her air of skepticism continued throughout the show.

While interviewing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), she noted Pentagon reports of thousands of successful missions but commented, “I mean, this is a devastating blow, yet you know, we're still there.”

“It's not even a month old, obviously,” she continued, before asking, “But are you concerned about the public and people? Again, very short attention spans, very impatient for victory, as is President Trump, I might add. But in an election year, it's easy to say politics don't matter, but at some point politics do come into play.”

And in a third segment, she highlighted the disastrous polling on the Iran war, commenting, “It looks like people are pretty impatient. The American people are sending a message to President Trump that it's time to put the focus back on the home front.”

Ingraham is inching toward the type of dissent that has been virtually absent from Fox’s coverage of the war, even as the broader right-wing media has split. Her colleagues have played key roles in convincing Trump to attack in the first place and are pushing for risky escalations. Ingraham herself briefly quibbled with Trump’s handling of an apparent U.S. strike that leveled an Iranian school, killing scores of children, but had supported the war itself, which she declared three weeks ago that Trump had already won.

But if Ingraham is getting cold feet and trying to convince Trump not to escalate a war the public has soured on, she remains an outlier at the network. Indeed, if the president tuned in for the two hours following Ingraham’s program, he saw her prime-time colleagues Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity argue not only that the war is going well and that Trump will inevitably lead the U.S. to victory, but that anyone who disagrees must want America to lose the war because they hate the president.

Watters began his show with a 10-minute monologue whose thesis was that “the Iranian regime is losing leverage fast as we continue to carry out thousands of sorties over enemy airspace.” After detailing various tactical victories, he touted a potential escalation.

“[President] 47 could be eyeing a knockout — Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island,” he said. “The Republican Guard has been preparing for battle, laying mines, booby trapping, loading up on Stingers, but retired top brass says our military is ready to shock and seize the terrain by air, by sea. We don't know if it's going to happen, but if it does happen, the Iranians won't know it's coming.”

“Iran looks like this is their last gasp, but some people would rather America lose the war because they hate Trump,” Watters concluded. “So far, this is the cleanest, most surgical and one-sided operation in American military history. Now, anything could happen, war is hell, it's unpredictable, but people in the know in Washington think we're about to close it out with a pretty big blow.”

Hannity, in his opening monologue, likewise declared: “Many on the left are now rooting for America to lose. Others seem to be hoping for another Vietnam-style quagmire. Why? Because Democrats care more about their political ambition rather than the future, safety, and security of your children and your grandchildren.”

“But tonight, President Trump is ignoring all the hysteria and pushing for peace one way or the other,” he continued. “If Iran's obliterated regime will not agree to a lasting agreement, this president has pledged he will continue to decimate their resolve through force, but that's really going to be up to them. They might unleash hell, otherwise.”

After airing a clip from Leavitt’s press briefing, Hannity added, “The message from President Trump is clear: Work with the U.S. or you will be killed.”

To which Ingraham might reply — what if killing them creates “cascading problems for the region”? As of yet, Watters and Hannity aren’t expressing any such concerns. And who the president is watching may determine the shape of things to come.

Fox Hosts Urge Flooding Iran With Small Arms To Incite Regime Change (Or Civil War)

Fox Hosts Urge Flooding Iran With Small Arms To Incite Regime Change (Or Civil War)

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade, and Jesse Watters have suggested flooding Iran with small arms to incite regime change, a reckless proposal that even some of their guests have rejected.

The United States and Israel last week launched an unprovoked war on Iran with shifting stated goals, one of which is regime change — or, perhaps more accurately, regime collapse. That could take several forms, including a mass uprising of the population in Iran or possibly the introduction of proxy forces, such as Kurdish militias, whom the CIA is reportedly working to arm. (The United States has a decadeslong history of encouraging Kurds across several countries to rise up and then betraying them.)

The risks of such a development are numerous, the most obvious being the threat of sending Iran into a spiral of violence that could turn into a civil war like in Syria after the Arab Spring or Iraq during the U.S. occupation. The United States poured weapons into both of those countries, helping to fuel the violence and worsen the internal conflicts.

Although such an outcome would appear disastrous on its face, there is ample evidence that the United States and Israel want to turn Iran from a regional power into a failed state incapable of countering their influence. Flooding the country with weapons could do that, and Fox News personalities are leading the charge.

Host Sean Hannity is the network’s most vocal supporter of the idea, both on his Fox prime-time show and on his radio program, which airs on Premiere Radio Networks.

“I already know” that arming Iranians is “part of the plan,” Hannity said on his March 2 radio show, telling a caller that “if you have millions of Iranians that, in fact, do have weapons and they rise up against the remnants of this regime — and there's not a lot — or for those Revolutionary Guard forces that will not put their weapons down, there's only one way to get rid of them.” (Whether Hannity’s claim to “already know” President Donald Trump’s war plans was bluster or not, the administration has been leaking insider information to its allies in right-wing media.)

Hannity returned to the topic several times during that show. “The Iranian people need to have elections, and they need to get armed, and they need to be able to fight back” against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he said. Later, he added, “I’m hoping that the students, the people in Iran, I’m hoping that they get the arms for any remaining Revolutionary Guard forces that won't lay down their weaponry.”

“You can't win a revolution with a slingshot — at some point they are going to need to be armed to take out the remaining loyalists,” he said the following day.

That evening, Hannity broached the idea on his Fox show during an interview with network contributor and retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, one of the war’s most vocal cheerleaders outside the Trump administration.

“Do we need to arm the civilians that had taken to the streets, that were being mowed down by the tens of thousands?” Hannity asked.

“In terms of arming the people themselves, I would pause on doing that,” Keane said. “I wouldn’t rush into that.” He added, “I don’t think just arming them and creating that — upgunning that level of violence is what we need.”

Seemingly unsatisfied with that answer, Hannity later in the same show asked retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the arming of U.S.-backed “death squads” in Iraq during the so-called surge, what he thought of the idea.

“Should part of the plan be to arm the people that have been slaughtered on the streets that were looking for freedom and change, so that it won’t take any American or Israeli forces?” Hannity asked. “I’ve got to believe there is going to be holdovers that are loyal to the former regime.”

“Well, I agree with my old boss and mentor and friend, Gen. Jack Keane, who earlier said that he’s not certain about that given there’s no organization there.”

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade has floated the idea too.

“I just wonder at some point is the CIA or Mossad going to be able to arm the people?” Kilmeade said on March 3. “If you arm the people so they're not slaughtered in the streets, that would begin to get the IRGC’s attention.”

“We've got to find a way to arm that population and open up these prisons,” Kilmeade said on March 4, referring to Kurds in Iran.

His colleague Jesse Watters made a similar suggestion.

“Trump has even been on the phone with the Kurds," Watters said on March 3. “We might be able to arm them and use them as boots on the ground.” (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, formerly a co-host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, said on March 4 that “none of our objectives are premised on the support of the arming of any particular force.”)

The Trump administration has done such a poor job explaining its war on Iran that even right-wing media allies are having a hard time articulating the conflict’s larger strategy and goals. Predicting the direction any war will take is a fool’s errand, but it doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that flooding Iran with weapons is a recipe for disaster and potentially state collapse. For Fox News hosts, that appears to be an acceptable outcome.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

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