Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump launched an ill-conceived, ill-planned war in Iran, the Fox News Cabinet members who urged him to launch military strikes there are either pushing him to escalate or stressing what a great job he’s done.
Zeteo’s Justin Baragona and Asawin Suebsang confirmed on Thursday that televised input from the Fox propagandists Trump trusts played a role in the president’s decision to launch a war of choice. Trump regularly shapes policy based on what he sees on the network, and hosts Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Brian Kilmeade were loudly urging the president to attack Iran in the days before he did so.
Though U.S. and Israeli forces have successfully bombed a wide array of Iranian targets and assassinated its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the U.S. military also appears to have killed scores of Iranian children with a Tomahawk missile strike on a school, Iran has now taken the incredibly obvious step of closing the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint through which about 20 percent of global crude oil and liquified natural gas flows — and it remains unclear what a strategic victory could look like.
But if Trump is watching his favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, he’s hearing Kilmeade call for an expanded mission that would require putting troops on the ground in Iran.
“We killed their commander, and we’re killing a lot more, and the Israelis’ intelligence on the ground is unbelievable,” he said on Thursday. “Hopefully, that leads to grabbing that uranium out of some of those destroyed sites, maybe that’ll be something that will be announced shortly.”
Kilmeade’s casual invocation of “grabbing that uranium” elides the difficulties involved in attempting to secure and transfer potentially over a thousand pounds of material that has likely been dispersed across a hostile foreign country and possibly outside of it.
Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, detailed the potential dilemmas of such an operation in a Wednesday appearance on MS NOW.
Kilmeade has also suggested U.S. forces seize Iranian territory — using language that seems carefully chosen to appeal to the president.
“I just wonder how soon until we decide to grab that Kharg Island, where 90% of all the Iranian oil is shipped,” Kilmeade offered on Wednesday.
“If we have that, you want the ultimate leverage, we have it,” he added, “I just think that that's something the president has talked about since the ‘80s, everyone knows it, and that would really get their attention.”
Kilmeade went on to say that the administration could be hesitating because if the U.S. seizes Kharg Island, there would be “a temporary uptick” in the cost of oil during the “transition.”
“But Iran can't adjust economically without it,” he added. “So if you want to create ultimate leverage on a regime that is so scared, they are afraid to put their supreme leader out in public, I think that's one way to do it.”
He concluded, appearing to address Trump directly: “If you are in control of it, you literally are doing what you did with [Venezuelan President] Delcy Rodriguez. We took all their ships and said nothing is coming in or out. We will control your oil. We flipped the government to take Maduro out, and now we’re refining their oil.”
Kharg Island “is arguably the country’s most sensitive economic target,” Dan Sabbagh, defense and security editor for The Guardian, wrote on Wednesday, but “an effort to seize the island, given its size, would be likely to require a sizeable and sustained operation, greater than a typical special forces incursion.”
He further reported that “experts say bombing or capturing the site with US forces would be likely to cause a sustained increase to already surging oil prices, as it would amount to taking the entirety of Iran’s daily crude exports offline.” That could cause a “tailspin” for global markets, even if oil shipments subsequently resumed.
Levin and Hannity can’t stop praising the “extraordinary leader” who launched the war
While Kilmeade is focused on coming up with new ways for Trump to risk the lives of American service members and undermine global financial and political stability, Hannity and Levin have been telling their viewers — which could include the president on any given night — that the war is going swimmingly and that anyone who says otherwise is lying.
“After just one week, Iran's Air Force, Army, Navy is in tatters,” Hannity said Monday. “Its radical leaders, they're all dead. A murderous regime is now a shadow of its former self.”
He went on to explain that in Iran, “a new supreme leader, ayatollah, has been announced and his days as of this hour are likely numbered” and the country “is apparently struggling to put up a fight.”
On Tuesday, Hannity praised Trump for demanding Iran remove any mines it had placed in the Strait of Hormuz, commenting: “Tonight, the message from the Trump administration and President Trump is crystal clear. Any Iranian ship that poses a threat to the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz will be obliterated without warning and sent straight to hell and the bottom of the sea in a million pieces.”
He added, “A little advice to anyone still alive in Iran's Navy, dock your vessel, head to dry land, and maybe you want to go home and join your families.”
And on Wednesday, Hannity began his nightly monologue with “the very latest figures out of Operation Epic Fury.”
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Iranian ballistic missile attacks, they’re down by over 90%. More than 5,000 targets, now, have been eliminated.
Air dominance has been secured. More than Iranian vessels have been obliterated, including all four Soleimani-class warships. The old ayatollah, supreme leader, and all of his top deputies and the next layer of leadership are all dead.
The new ayatollah is too afraid to appear anywhere in public. In fact, we don’t even know if he’s dead or alive.
Now, all of this in less than 11 days. America and Israel are dominating the evil regime in Iran.
On Saturday, Levin lavished Trump with praise for attacking Iran, calling him “an extraordinary leader and president who spent most of his life as a captain of industry, several industries, in fact, who gave up an enormously successful career to serve his country, a country he so dearly loves.”
He went on to attack those who suggest U.S. aims in Iran are unclear.
“Now, lot of people are saying, people who know better, what's the mission? Why are we acting now and so forth and so on?” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, it's just appalling to hear Democrats and commentators and others make these statements when they know damn well what the mission is. We've faced this for 50 years.”
Levin subsequently asked Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “It's so important that we have this commander-in-chief when we have this commander-in-chief because literally none of this would be happening, would it?”
“Mark, I don't believe that presidents know when history is going to come knocking,” Goldberg replied. “It happens at times you can't expect. But what makes a great president is being willing to answer the call, not to shy away, not to cower, not to be deterred, as many past presidents have, and repeatedly throughout his two presidencies, when history knocks, President Trump answers the call, and that is what he just did.”
Goldberg went on to say of the war: “We are six days in, seven days in and this is moving at a pace no one could ever have imagined. We are decimating their missiles, their drones, their Navy, their ability to remake a nuclear weapons program, and soon, with the help of our allies in Israel, decapitating their ability to wage war against the Iranian people as well.”
“Understand what is at stake here for our national security. Donald Trump is delivering for the United States of America,” he concluded.
“Beautifully put, and conversely, the Democrats are trying to obstruct him every step of the way,” Levin replied.
The president was watching Levin and Goldberg wax poetic about how great he is.
“Rich Goldberg was GREAT on Mark Levin tonight,” Trump posted that night. “Two guys who really get it! Thank you both.”
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
