The Most Extreme Measure

You would think that the New York Times is the propaganda arm of the Iranian regime. I am not talking about the opinion pages, because opinion pages do not pretend to report the news. I am talking about a front page article by the Times which suggests that President Trump is a rogue actor who ignores the advice of his senior advisors and who acts impulsively, impetuously, regardless of the facts.

The key to the Times propaganda flashes in our eyes in the headline. There, the Times, in a clearly instance of editorializing, calls Trump’s decision to terminate Gen. Suleimani,  the “most extreme measure.”

Now, I assume that you and I, without breaking a sweat, can easily think of more extreme measures: like attacking Iran, like sinking the Iranian navy, like nuking Tehran, and so on.

And yet, for the Times, in its zealous efforts to destroy Donald Trump, opts for the phrase “most extreme,” as though it was anything else but a defamation and a slander.

What was it that pushed Trump into this “ most extreme” measure? Why, it seems to have been, by the Times reporting, the attack on the American Embassy in Iraq. The attack penetrated the perimeter and set fires within it. For those who do not know it, an embassy is sovereign American territory. The Iranian leader had ordered his forces to invade America. 

The Times seems to understand that point, but it continues to portray Trump as irrational and impulsive.

After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shia militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.

By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.

We might ask ourselves about the political beliefs of said officials, and why they are leaking to the New York Times, but that would be improper. And we can also ask about members of the National Security Council, Obama holdovers, whose loyalty to their Messiah far outstrips their loyalty to the nation.

Does the Times prefer an American president who sits by, insouciant, while his country is being invaded? Or who tells the military to stand down while the American ambassador is facing incoming fire from terrorists?