Banging the War Drum #1

MEDIA NOTES: The U.S. and Iran and the Growing Threat of War. NPR On Point 020507

My local NPR station doesn’t broadcast On Point live at 10:00 a.m. It rebroadcasts a tape at midnight, which seems like a weird way to listen to a live talk show. If I wake ‘round midnight I switch on the clock radio next to my bed and check out what I missed earlier in the day. Sometimes I fall back to sleep. Not tonight.

The topic was the growing threat of war with Iran. Tom Ashbrook said in his lead, “Some say it's a U.S. bluff. Some fear an accidental and devastating war. Some believe White House hardliners want a war with Iran, and are going for it.”

One of the guests was Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel and professor at the National War. He believes the Bushies are going for it:

It looks like a strike on a nuclear facility… the President’s red line looks like it’s being crossed… Something is going on within the National Security Council that raises a very strong red flag with me. There’s a working group in the National Security Council that’s called something like the Media Relations Group. [Its] mission… is to create outrage in the world over Iran. I don’t find any logic to creating outrage as the basis of negotiations. Outrage is the foundation for a strike… There are ads in the Washington area now on television that go over horrific things Iran has done. Somebody is encouraging think tanks to pay for commercial ads to build outrage against Iran.

“Four years ago today Colin Powell was before the U.N. making his case for evidence over WMD in Iraq and you’re suggesting something like that may be afoot right now,” Ashbrook interjected.

“The unfolding of the storyline is so much like the pre-Gulf II storyline, the hair on the back of my neck stands up,” Gardiner replied.

That’s when I got out of bed and started to blog. It’s War Drum Flash Back Time again.

Gardiner’s source on the NSC Media Relations Group was an unidentified article in the Boston Globe, maybe this one from 010207: US unit works quietly to counter Iran's sway. The article refers to the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group, or ISOG.