Iran's Most Powerful Weapon

Erick Erickson on Mar 20, 2026

Three weeks into a military engagement in Iran, a war Republicans will not call a war, the American and Israeli militaries have all but wiped out Iran's capacity to make war. We have killed their leadership, the replacement leaders and militia members on the ground. We have destroyed their missile launchers and the factories in which they made the missiles. But Iran still has one of the most powerful weapons in the world on its side and it is ruthlessly deploying it -- the American press corps.

"Families mourn as dead are laid to rest in Tehran," blared the front page, above the fold headline in the Athens Banner-Herald in Athens, Ga. Beneath the headline, a grieving mother dressed fully in black held a black-framed portrait of her dead son with a black band across the portrait. Her son was in a military uniform.

The Detroit News ran another picture of the same mother with the same story. "Marzia Rezaei reacts while standing near the grave of her son, Erfan, who was killed in strikes, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, in Tehran, Iran, March 16, 2026." Reuters, the wire service, got credit for both pictures and the underlying story.

The Detroit News, the Athens Banner-Herald and other news outlets featuring the dead Iranian soldier ran no front-page stories with the names and faces of the 35,000 Iranian citizens that Erfan Shamei, the dead soldier in the picture, would have been complicit in killing. When Iranian protestors took to the streets in January, the Iranian regime opened fire on them. Outside observers claim up to 150,000 would have been wounded and many killed. Iran itself claims 35,000 were killed.

In Tehran, the regime punished two nurses who had aided the wounded by letting men gang rape them. They were so severely raped that their uteruses had to be removed. The Athens Banner-Herald did not cover that. But a dead regime soldier killed by American and Israeli air strikes warranted front-page news coverage in newspapers across America.

The American press claims it is "just asking questions," which is the same line used by the antisemitic conspiracy theorists online also rooting against the United States and Israel. The press should hold officials accountable, but they are desperate for the American military to fail because they really do not want President Donald Trump to succeed.

For over a decade, the American press has built up a repository of conventional wisdom that Trump keeps defying. Moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would destabilize the region and lead to war. It did not. Killing Qasem Soleimani would lead to war. It did not. Now, the press is left to assure us that the American and Israeli military are killing all the moderate Iranian leaders and only the hardliners will be left, which will lead to a forever war.

Only in the newsrooms of America could a leadership that killed 35,000 of its citizens, hang gay men by cranes and gang rapes nurses rendering aid be considered moderate. Now, relying on conventional wisdom, the press tells us we cannot win or even that we are losing. The press relies on voices that process most of their insights through their hatred of Donald Trump and other voices that have long had ties to the Iranian regime.

We captured and jailed Nicolas Maduro and have Cuba on the verge of collapse, with Cubans starting to riot and burn down communist party offices around the country. We have deprived China of oil from Iran. We have deprived Russia of Iranian drones to use in Ukraine. But the American press would rather us believe we are on the verge of defeat at the hands of the fifth deputy under lieutenant of toilet bowls of Iran, the last leader standing and now defiantly a hardliner.

"An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and verified videos suggests that at least 10 radar sites used by the U.S. and its allies have been struck by Iranian drones or missiles since the start of the war," tweeted that network. Do not wait for ABC News to do the same about Iran. They are rooting for Iran.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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