Graeme Wood

But there's plenty to criticize in what's already happened that's apparent right before our eyes.

There is a total failure so far in political messaging.

Very little explanation of what's going on, why it has to happen now.

And that's messaging both to Americans and to Iranians, by the way.

The Iranian people, especially in Tehran, where they've suffered by far the worst of the bombing.

they're not really sure if the United States and Israel really cares about them and really cares about some other objectives, such as just destroying the capability of whatever Iranian state exists, whether it's a friendly one or an unfriendly one.

So all of that messaging takes pre-planning and it takes the development of some faith in what the administration and the military is saying.

And that's made us

as Americans pretty vulnerable to Iranian propaganda.

I mean, I know Americans who I think of as pretty sophisticated consumers of information.

who are repeating to me falsehoods that are stated by Iranian propaganda.

Why are they doing that?

Why are they susceptible?

It's because there's no one on the American side who they can credibly turn to and then say, ah, okay, well, this person explained why that's not the case.

So there's a horrible vulnerability that could have been averted if there was just some faith and rapport developed between Iranians

the administration and the American people, the administration and the press.

And as we know, that rapport has has been

completely destroyed.

And in the information war, that's a big problem.

Yeah, I mean, this has been a long-term problem with not just this administration, but any previous administration's plans or policies about war in Iran, which is that the Iranian progress is incremental and war is not incremental.