Page 303 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

A Game Plan for Infnite War? 293

and Iraqi national sovereignty. While official narratives and frames largely
dominated reporting on the British-Iranian standoff, the U.S. detainment opera-
tions were portrayed as essential in promoting American self-defense, protection
of American troops, and in opposition to Iranian aggression and terrorism. Such
points were perhaps most blatantly evident in a Los Angeles Times editorial in-
sisting that the "U.S. has every right [emphasis added] to insist on the arrest,
prosecution, or expulsion from Iraq of Iranians, officials or not, who abet terror-
ism."5' Deference to U.S. justifications was also evident in light of overreliance
on official statements, to the neglect of nonofficial ones.
In a final test of the propaganda model, one may examine the ways in the
Iranian-British standoff was distinguished from the earlier U.S. detainment of
Iranians in terms of discounting a possible cause and effect relationship. Did the
U.S. abduction of Iranian officials incite Iranian leaders to respond against the
U.S. or its allies in Iraq by abducting British military personnel? While a com-
plete answer this question seems elusive, the posing of the question should have
been a priority if the American media were committed to understanding possible
root causes of the British-Iranian standoff.
In the case of British media coverage, one can see that the question of a
causal link between the two incidents was focused on more intensively. In a
number of potentially explosive stories reported during the March standoff, the
Independent of London reported that the original targets in the U.S.-Iranian de-
tainment in January had been government officials with far higher credentials
than the low-level officials who were actually detained in U.S. operations. The
United States, the Independent reported, had attempted to capture "two senior
Iranian officers. . . Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian
National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the Chief of Intel-
ligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard." The source of these charges came
from Kurdish officials, who explained that Jafari and Frouzanda "were in Kurdi-
stan on an official visit during which they met with Iraqi President Jalal Tala-
bani and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) . "
The significance of the failed capture of these officials was presented lu-
cidly by Patrick Cockburn of the Independent: "The attempt by the U.S. to seize
the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders
is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while
they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or
Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr. Jafari and Mr. Frouz-
anda were targeted by the Americans."
In a number of reports, Cockbum suggested a direct cause-and-effect link
between the original U.S. detainment and the following British-Iranian standoff
("The Botched U.S. Raid that Led to the Hostage Crisis," and "American Raid
He
and Arrests Set Scene for Capture of ~arines").~~ argued that "Better under-
standing of the seriousness of the U.S. action in Irbil-and the angry Iranian
response to it-should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to
realize that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as
highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. . . the attempt by the U.S. to