Last night, NPR’s\u00a0All Things Considered<\/em> ran a report by Eleanor Beardsley<\/a> about the eagerness of European businesses<\/a> to get back into Iran after the lifting of sanctions. \u00a0Such a story could and should\u00a0have been reported\u00a0without passing judgment on\u00a0the merits of the agreement itself.<\/p>\n

Instead, over a minute of the report is devoted to explaining that the deal is uncontroversial in France, that this is because it’s a strong deal, Iran “can’t even think about making a bomb for 15 years,” and that France deserves credit for helping to make it so. \u00a0These assertions by the French Foreign Minister are simply accepted at face value. \u00a0In fact, the assertions about the strength of the deal are demonstrably false; and so, therefore, and the claims that France extracted any worthwhile concessions from Iran during the negotiations. \u00a0\u00a0Left implied, but unasked, is the conclusion that\u00a0if the agreement is solid because of French-demanded concessions, it have been weak and unverifiable\u00a0had the US been left to negotiate on its own.<\/p>\n

But the next quote is even worse, from\u00a0Thierry Coville<\/a> of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs:<\/p>\n

Most of the newspapers consider it a good agreement, and it’s good for peace. \u00a0But, let’s say you have some experts which are taking the Israeli line, criticizing Obama, but it’s a minority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coville, whose focus of studies is Iran’s economics, politics, and the historical interplay between the two, ghettoizes criticism of the deal into Israeli criticism of Obama. \u00a0There’s no valid debate, no valid critique, and indeed, even though it was the French who allegedly gave the agreement its teeth, the criticism is of Obama.<\/p>\n

Beardsley let this characterization\u00a0go without objection.<\/p>\n

Let’s review Beardsley’s options. \u00a0She could have asked for another quote that didn’t take the discussion off into anti-Bibi Land. \u00a0She could have continued the discussion with Coville until she got such a quote. \u00a0She could have talked to another expert. \u00a0She could have not used a quote at all, since she reads the French press and knows perfectly well what they’re saying about the deal. \u00a0She could have not devoted 25% of her report to selling the deal to us in the first place.<\/i><\/p>\n

Instead, she did none of those things, and let the words of an allegedly independent authority indict criticism of the deal as emanating from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

It would appear, then, that the editorial position of NPR is the same as that of Obama: opposition to the deal will come only from Israel and her lobbyists.<\/p>\n

Your tax dollars at work.
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