Once upon a time, war was thought to result from an escalation of conflict. Threats were usually identifiable as whole nations. People could tell when a war was looming, for the buildup was visible and violent.
Then somewhere between when you and I were born and when you and I started high school, a global transition long in the making came full circle, and international conflict became significantly more difficult to understand. Threats to security no longer came only from states, and the precursors to war were often a series of politically charged armaments and disarmaments, accords and disagreements, power configurations and reconfigurations — instead of violent escalation. Pre-emption became legitimate. The world’s publics were at times confused by these changes, but did their best to reconceptualize the new causes of war and understand that the precursors to war in the modern world had changed.
Because of this, popular attention to international politics became much more important. The public came to approve or disapprove of war on a cerebral level — because of what they understood, from the media, to constitute a real threat.
The upside was that fewer decisions to engage in war took place outside some degree of public scrutiny. The downside was that if the media’s coverage of international politics happened to be slightly off base, public opinion would be highly sensitive to that, resulting in dissonance between reality and the perception upon which foreign policy was constructed. The state soon discovered the power vested in the clever use of media frames, and in 2003, Americans approved of a war for which, in a previous time, they would not have seen the necessity.
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Even if you’ve been living in a cave (a.k.a. Uris) all semester, one piece of news will have worked its way to you: Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia … controversy ensued. Surely, this story has been spun a number of ways, the gists of which have ranged from “Ahmadinejad is crazy and Iran is cruisin’ for a bruisin’” to “Bollinger is a tool and A-jad scored major legitimacy points back in Iran.” Cornell’s liberal paper, The Cornell Progressive, even dedicated the front page of its most recent issue to a balanced, if not terribly original, story on all this controversy.
The Columbia story was not an isolated event — both before and after his gig at that other Ivy, Ahmadinejad had been riding the news waves, his picture appearing most recently on the front page of The New York Times in a story about the awkward relationship between him and Putin. Over the past six months, Ahmadinejad’s ironically Western image of stylish suit and open shirt has been engrained in the minds of the American public (you’ll notice that the depth of permeation of his image into American consciousness has even barred Obama from dressing in his previous, relaxed style). Some of us have even picked up the ability to pronounce his name in casual conversation.
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The rapidly evolving relationship between Iran, Israel and the United States is probably the most important political dilemma in the world right now. Neither Israel nor the U.S. will permit Iran to continue their nuclear program; Iran has repeatedly stated that it has no intentions of halting its nuclear program. The U.S. has repeatedly said that nuclear missiles are on the table. With Bush lame duck-ing it, frighteningly impervious to much of the political opinion both inside and outside of Washington (take Scooter Libby’s overtly nepotistic evasion of prison time as evidence), we may very well be closer than we’ve been since the Cold War to an international conflict of nuclear tenor.
BUT, virtually all media coverage related to Iran in recent months has been a debate over the personal character of Ahmadinejad. Virtually absent from mainstream media coverage of Iran has been reasoned debate of the pros and cons of going to war with the country. What effect would this have on the U.S. economy? What would happen to the little political capital and soft power we still possess? What would a war with Iran actually look like, militarily, with all of our troops predisposed in that other troublesome Middle Eastern country? With no regional allies, how much of a threat to international security does Iran pose if it does achieve greater nuclear capacity — a feat that Newsweek claims would take at least three to eight years, at which point Iran might very well have a more rational and less anti-Western, anti-Israeli president? Will preemptive missile strikes fully douse Iran’s nuclear aspirations, or will they further entrench Ahmadinejad’s domestic legitimacy and radical mandate?
Although the buildup to this looming Iranian conflict is probably grounded in more fact than was the buildup to the Iraq war, the battles of framing taking place in the media are strikingly similar. Five years ago, the debate was not over the feasibility of military success in Iraq or the radical redefinition of international relations that our preemption would incur, but the irrationality of Hussein’s cooperation or resistance to negotiations and inspections. The result was disastrous.
It makes hardly any difference whether or not half the columnists at The Sun or The New York Times draw liberal or conservative conclusions about Ahmadinejad’s personal character— the entire debate exists within the same, narrow framework: the one proponed by neo-cons. As long as the contention about Iran is over Ahmadinejad himself, America will come to a conclusion about the country without having even thought critically about the important issues.
The trouble with framing is that every journalist and policy organization feels that to remain pertinent and attract attention, they need to address the issues that are “hot.” The idea that journalists are bound to the preconceived ways of examining issues and asking questions, however, is ridiculous. It is the role of journalism to frame issues anew, not to replicate. The Progressive should be at the forefront of this, not a tool at the behest of the Department of Defense. The Sun staff, also, needs to find the confidence to do more than regurgitate issues that have been trampled to death.
PLEASE, let’s not go to war because we didn’t debate the right set of issues. Again.
Tim Krueger is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at tkrueger@cornellsun.com. Educating Your Guesses appears alternate Thursdays.