The Trump White House took time out this weekend from openly mocking and threatening Venezuela, and justifying US immigration forces executing an unarmed American woman while ordering the FBI to investigate her widow, to, once again, feign concern for human rights in Iran. And, once again, US media dutifully lined up to repeat this clearly absurd motivation as genuine without any an ounce of critical reporting, context, or pushback.
Almost every major outlet has taken Trump’s alleged motivation for potentially bombing Iran of defending Iranian demonstrators at face value:
- Wall Street Journal (1/11/26): “…a sign the president is considering reprimanding the regime for its crackdown on demonstrators as he has repeatedly threatened.”
- New York Times (1/10/26): “Mr. Trump has not made a final decision [to bomb Iran], but the officials said he was seriously considering authorizing a strike in response to the Iranian regime’s efforts to suppress demonstrations set off by widespread economic grievances.’
- New York Times (1/13/26): “…the Trump administration is simultaneously considering a range of measures, including possible military strikes, to try to prevent further killings of protesters.”
- CNN (1/11/26): “President Donald Trump is weighing a series of potential military options in Iran following deadly protests in the country, two US officials told CNN, as he considers following through on his recent threats to strike the Iranian regime should it use lethal force against civilians.”
- Washington Post (1/11/26): “The Trump administration is considering military options in response to the crackdown…”
- Washington Post (1/13/26): “Trump’s escalating rhetoric and the soaring death toll from inside Iran come as the White House said this week that his administration was weighing diplomatic options while considering potential responses [to the shooting of protestors], including military strikes.
This was the same week Trump withdrew the US from 66 international organizations, many focusing on human rights and global development, continued to openly extort Venezuela for its oil resources, reaffirmed his desire to take over Greenland by force, dismissed new elections in Venezuela as a condition for anything, and launched a propaganda campaign against an activist his regime had just killed in broad daylight. Yet, Trump is said to be—or is heavily implied to be—motivated by defending free speech rights and democracy in Iran by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post.
None of the above articles registered an ounce of skepticism about the White House’s stated motive, all either presenting the human rights concern as genuine or heavily implying it was.
So what else could be motivating Trump other than “defending demonstrators”? There are many options, of course—most far more consistent with the reality of Trump rather than a sudden Grinch-like transition from craven imperialist to bleeding-heart liberal. Could it perhaps be a desire to see a pro-US dictator take over the US’s longtime “enemy”? Could it be an attempt to decapitate an Iranian regime thwarting US hegemony in the Middle East? Could it be to eliminate, once and for all, the primary opponent of Israel? Could it be to raise tensions and drag Iran into a costly and deadly civil war? None of these motives are considered, much less examined, in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Washington Post, or CNN’s coverage of his announcement—which didn’t seem at all perplexed by a president who has never once expressed even nominal sympathy for Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech suddenly turning into Ken Roth.
Nor do any of these reports mention the key fact that no demonstrators, outside of fringe monarchists, are asking the US to launch airstrikes on Iran. Such an outside escalation is the militant, irresponsible fantasy of Lindsey Graham and Benjamin Netanhayu—not the activists in the street on whose behalf such a strike would ostensibly be waged. But just as they did with his oil tanker hijackings and attack on Venezuela and abduction of their leader 11 days ago, US media reflexively liberal-washes every act of aggression Trump undertakes, or threatens to undertake, when its aims are consistent with Washington foreign policy consensus.
This is despite Trump almost never bothering to run through the motions of displaying liberal or human rights motivations. When in his past, prior to 12 days ago when his threats to bomb Iran were accompanied by concern for “peaceful protestors,” has Trump ever expressed concern about protecting political dissent? According to his former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, at the height of George Floyd protests in 2020, then-President Trump asked Esper if he could order the military to shoot demonstrators “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump has praised physical attacks on reporters, praised extrajudicial killings of protestors, threatened to shoot “looters” without trial, and on Tuesday promised a ‘DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION” for anti-ICE protestors in Minnesota. Don’t any of the Pentagon and White House reporters mindlessly echoing Trump’s supposed concern for dissidents in Iran find this a bit unserious and pretextual? Will they include any critical examination of his motives at all?
None is to be found. Despite it being an obvious pretext to push the US into a full-blown regime change war against Iran, the idea that Trump seeks to “reprimand the regime for its crackdown on demonstrators” is being taken at face value by adults who not only should know better, but certainly do. We know from events in just the past few weeks that pretexts are dropped just as easily as they appear. Last week, just before their arraignment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump Department of Justice not only dropped its claim that Maduro was the head of the ‘Cartel de los Soles,’ but that the cartel existed at all. A central element justifying their military buildup on Venezuela, Exhibit A in the pretext to attack, bomb, and kidnap the head of another country, once it faced minimal outside scrutiny, was abandoned, put into a memory hole, and everyone just moved on.
Trump and the pro-war forces in his administration are clearly using Iranian suppression of demonstrations as a pretext for long-existing regime change designs. They are not simply responding in earnest to a humanitarian crisis unfolding to their surprise and dismay. A dynamic made all the more obvious by the fact that Trump has not once mentioned freedom and human rights as a motive for any potential action until a few days ago.
Why does having a sober and realistic assessment of Trump’s motivations matter? Because, in addition to the inherent propaganda value feigned concern for human rights carries, accurately assessing motives allows us to better predict outcomes. Had our media focused more on oil extraction and the goals of isolating Cuba and China, rather than trumped up “drug charges” on Venezuela, they could have better prepared the public for what we’ve seen this week: a mob-like shakedown operation complete with a backdoor meeting with US oil firms in Trump’s best effort to exploit Venezuela’s resources, worries about Venezuelan “fentanyl” now suddenly gone. No doubt in the event of a US-led bombing campaign of Iran Trump’s supposed concern for “demonstrators” and “people of Iran” will, likewise, vanish like smoke in the wind as the US pivots to sowing chaos and sectarian divisions rather than seeking to usher in organic democracy in Iran.
But for now this pretext is doing yeoman’s work: giving a thin justification for yet another military attack on yet another country. Unable to manufacture “drug cartel” pretenses, or a fresh anti-terror framework, or the threat of an attack on the US by an undermanned and scrambling Iranian government, the forces of war within the White House decided to act like the president cares about human rights and free speech. The president, clearly with reluctance, agreed to play along. The question is: Why is the whole of the US press doing so as well?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
