{"id":53902,"date":"2025-06-20T13:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T21:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=53902"},"modified":"2025-06-20T13:00:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T21:00:37","slug":"ny-times-and-roger-cohen-promote-war-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/20\/ny-times-and-roger-cohen-promote-war-again\/","title":{"rendered":"<I>NY Times<\/I> and Roger Cohen Promote War Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <em>New York Times<\/em> has been a major promoter of US &#8220;regime change&#8221; operations for decades. Today, while President Trump considers directly involving a US attack on Iran, the <em>NYT<\/em> is again performing this role despite many readers being skeptical or opposed.<\/p>\n<p>A June 19 <em>NYT<\/em> news\/analysis is titled <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/RkhUE\">&#8220;An Islamic Republic With Its Back Against the Wall<\/a>&#8221; by Roger Cohen. It seems written to pave the way for yet another US backed or directed &#8220;regime change&#8221;.\u00a0 The first sentence asserts without providing evidence that the Tehran government is &#8220;an umpopular and repressive regime&#8221;. An &#8220;Iran expert&#8221; is quoted saying, &#8220;The Islamic Republic is a rotten tooth waiting to be plucked, like the Soviet Union in its latter years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When Israel bombed the Iranian TV broadcast station as a female news anchor was reading the news,\u00a0 Cohen writes that &#8220;Some Iranians were overjoyed&#8221;. Cohen uses Netanyahu&#8217;s description that Israel&#8217;s attacks on Iran are &#8220;pre-emptive&#8221; and designed to &#8220;stop Iran usings its enriched uranium to race for a bomb.&#8221;\u00a0 He does not mention that even the US intelligence agencies agree that Iran does NOT have a nuclear weapon program.<\/p>\n<p>Cohen goes on to quote former Blackrock exectuve and now German Chancellor,Frederich Merz: &#8220;This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world.&#8221; Iran has invaded no countries while the US has invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria while Israel has attacked\u00a0 Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and now Iran.<\/p>\n<p>After suggesting some causes for caution, Cohen closes with his core message: the Tehran government may fall like the Berlin Wall. He quotes the &#8220;Iran expert&#8221; again: &#8220;The Islamic Republic is a zombie regime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Persistent War Promoter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Roger Cohen has been an influential participant in <em>NYT<\/em> distortions and lies. In 2002, he became <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/DUhwy\">\u00a0<em>NYT<\/em> foreign editor<\/a> during the crucial run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As stated at his Wikipedia page, &#8220;He supported the invasion.&#8221; The deceit about the non-existent &#8220;weapons of mass destruction&#8221; was under Cohen&#8217;s direction.<\/p>\n<p>In early March, 2011, Roger Cohen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/08\/opinion\/08iht-edcohen08.html\">said<\/a> he was against Western intervention in Libya. Two weeks later, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/18\/opinion\/18iht-edcohen18.html\">urged<\/a> the West to be &#8220;ruthless&#8221; and to kill the Libyan leader.\u00a0 This has turned out to be yet another disaster. The Libyan people are still paying the price while Roger Cohen has forgotten about it.<\/p>\n<p>Roger Cohen, representative of the <em>Times<\/em>, consistently finds a few voices of opposition, claims without evidence they represent a large group or the civilian majority, then promotes intervention, violence and &#8220;regime change&#8221;. He did this with Iraq, then Libya, now Iran.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Many <em>NY Times<\/em> Readers are Critical <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Judging from the most popular reader comments, many <em>NYT<\/em> readers are critical of this &#8220;news analysis&#8221;. The most popular comment has 1600 endorsements. Dr. Finn Majlergaard from France says, &#8220;What right do you (Americans) think you have to decide who should be in power in sovereign countries when you can&#8217;t even deal with your own domestic dictator and the US regime&#8217;s gestapo methods against foreigners?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The second most popular comment is from Florence Massachussetts. The reader asks,\u00a0 &#8220;Will it be okay if a truly democratic nation bombs the United States in order to encourage regime change away from our current authoritarian rulers?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority of reader comments are critical of the drive to attack and possibly overthrow yet another government. Apparently they have learned from past foreign policy failures while the <em>NY Times<\/em> and foreign policy establishment have not. Another disaster based on false assumptions and arrogance lays ahead.<\/p>\n<p><em>Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area.\u00a0He can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:rsterling1@gmail.com\">rsterling1@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times has been a major promoter of US &#8220;regime change&#8221; operations for decades. Today, while President Trump considers directly involving a US attack on Iran, the NYT is again performing this role despite many readers being skeptical or opposed. A June 19 NYT news\/analysis is titled &#8220;An Islamic Republic With Its Back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[795],"class_list":["post-53902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53906,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53902\/revisions\/53906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53902"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=53902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}