The war in Iran has provided the latest example in a long line of events to split public opinion. On the one side, you have those in the general public and the press claiming that this is a war the US entered into unthinkingly and is currently desperately attempting to extract itself from while saving face.
On the other side, you have other members of the general public and press who paint a completely different picture, saying the US has achieved a near-total military victory and that it is the Islamic Republic that is desperate for the war to end while attempting to save face with its own supporters.
So which side is to be believed, and how can we know who to trust?
In this age of social media algorithms and ever increasingly polarised opinions, it’s little wonder that the sources we rely on for information tend to confirm the viewpoints we hold, rather than challenging them. But this makes it tricky when we come across differing worldviews and opinions, when the choice must be made to either disregard the claim, question the motives or information behind it, or to take it seriously.
I suspect most people reading this will have a view on the conflict, and that this view will likely be shaped by whether or not they were pro or anti-Trump, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran before it started.
But for those of us who like to comment upon such things, what is it that drives us? Are we seeking the truth and that alone, or merely confirmation of our own worldview?
This is a question I’ve long been asking myself, even once considering starting a news agency with this exact goal in mind - to report dispassionately - before concluding that any such endeavour would still come with a bias; it would just be my own, as opposed to someone else’s.
But what are journalists for, if not to seek out and report on the truth? I find myself increasingly considering this question, as I grow frustrated by what I believe to be flawed reporting of the current conflict, including from storied journalists such as the BBC’s Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen.
Question marks have also been raised about the visits of certain journalists, including Doucet, to Iran in the wake of the January massacre, when reports seemed to focus on pro-regime gatherings - Doucet was especially lambasted for describing them as having a “family feel” - while neglecting to visit the mortuaries in which the bodies of thousands of protesters had been piled, or seeking out bereaved family members.
Among the others welcomed to Iran’s streets in the wake of the massacre were Muslim activist Bushra Shaikh and the co-founder of Palestine Action-US, Calla Walsh, and I suppose I don’t need to tell you whose narrative their reports sought to bolster.
One of the greatest achievements of the Islamic Republic has been its ability to control the narrative, both at home through state TV, but also through a network of well-known and lesser-known apologists in the West.
As someone whose work has focused on Iran for the last seven years, I’ve become well accustomed to seeing seemingly credible journalists and even activists labelled as apologists. At times, the claims have surprised me, but for the most part, there has appeared to be some truth behind the claims.
The group most frequently tarnished by its alleged association with the Islamic Republic is the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, whose “experts” have long been decried by many an Iranian as nothing more than the puppets of the regime. But the accusations have gone much further, including journalists at the BBC, CNN and New York Times, all of which leads one to wonder how the regular non-Iran expert is supposed to make sense of it all.
An additional complexity is the skill with which the mouthpieces of the Islamic Republic twist the truth. It is all so carefully choreographed, as is always the case with the Islamic Republic of Iran, for whom propaganda and oppression go hand in hand.
Take Mohammad Marandi, whom you may well have come across on talk shows like Piers Morgan’s, and who is so skilled at lying that even as someone who disagrees with almost everything he says, I sometimes find myself wondering if there’s some truth to it.
They’ve even tried rebranding Hitler of late, with posters hung on Iranian streets, showing pictures of Adolf alongside the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and a quote attributed - apparently falsely - to the Nazi leader, stating that “betraying the homeland is the same as enabling your own mother’s rape”.
In the case of the current conflict, the question of who wins the war may even be disputed long after it has finished, as all sides will no doubt attempt to claim victory, unless the regime in Iran is actually overthrown.
Failing that, you can almost guarantee that the Americans will claim a military victory and that the Iranians “begged” them for a deal; that the Israelis will say they’ve put back Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear ambitions by over a decade; and that the Islamic Republic will claim that merely surviving proves no outside force can defeat them.
One Iran analyst, Karim Sadjadpour, wrote recently that “Tehran wins by not losing; Trump loses by not winning”, and I agree.
But in the meantime, how can the average Joe know whether to believe that the US has completely “obliterated” Iran’s military, navy, and air force, as it has claimed, or whether, as the Islamic Republic would wish us to believe, the desperate calls are coming from the other direction.
It increasingly appears to me that what the world needs most is someone, or some entity, that can help people make sense of all the differing perspectives out there, from a truly neutral and dispassionate position - journalists who seek to report the truth and the truth alone, however much it may grate against their own preconceived positions.
Since the conflict, during which Iranians have once again been almost completely cut off from the Internet, there has been an outcry from Iranians against the reporting of journalists from Sky News and CNN, whose coverage from inside Iran has seemed entirely one-sided.
But my question is: what motivates such journalism? Is there malign intent, or are the journalists simply seeking to present the facts as they see them, through their own anti-Trump and Israel lenses?
I suspect the latter is true, and that, like all of us, they are so steeped in their particular worldview that they wouldn’t even recognise, let alone accept, the criticism that they are only aiding the Islamic Republic in its bid to cover up the massacre that led us here and instead to present itself as the chief resistor against imperialism.
But what of my own bias? I recently spoke to a valued colleague at a partner organization whose viewpoint I found challenging but also difficult to dismiss out of hand. Essentially, the argument this individual was making was that the regime in Iran was unlikely to fall, and that those who believed it will were romantics, rather than realists.
I found it a difficult message to accept, but was this because I did not believe the assessment to be true - one Iranian friend of mine suggested this individual had watched too much CNN - or because I feared that it might be, but that to accept this would be to put a dagger through my own dreams of an Iran finally freed from the Islamic Republic.
It is certainly true that I find it easier to welcome reports and comments that suggest the Islamic Republic is weakening and even on the verge of collapse, than those that suggest Trump is already looking for a way out, and that this will enable a hollowed-out and embittered regime to remain.
I dearly hope - and believe - that it is the truth that I seek more than simply confirmation of my own biases, but perhaps that just confirms that, truly, I am more of a romantic than a realist.
I suppose time will tell, but in the meantime, good luck to all of us as we attempt to make sense of it all.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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