Here is the weather forecast: A large front is developing, preceded by fog.
The fog is expected to be widespread and persistent.
Older viewers may recall a similar severe weather system that developed in 2003, when visibility was impaired for many weeks.
It was the fog of war. It lingered over the Gulf states, was the trigger point for the Iraq War, and led to hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Viewers will also recall that in the midst of that fog were Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMDs. Forecasters at the time predicted massive damage if they were activated.
The forecasters then were wrong. The WMDs did not exist. The meteorologists had placed far too much reliance on data provided by a single source. It was called Curveball and analysts had taken its information at face value. In May 2004 the New York Times published a fulsome mea culpa, admitting it had taken official and other sources at face value and had failed to check their veracity. Three months later the Washington Post apologised to readers for being “overly credulous” and published a 3000-word article exposing its lapses in reporting and editing.
One might have thought that experience would have made all of us wary of information from sources fixated on particularly nasty weather. It has certainly been burned into the consciousness of journalists, who have been less trusting (at least of the White House and the Pentagon) ever since.
But too many people still put their faith in the hands of foggy forecasters.
I was reminded of all of this over the past week. I was also reminded of the following observation by British author David Lodge in his comic novel Changing Places: “…even the weather forecast seemed to be some kind of spoof, predicting every possible combination of weather for the next twenty-four hours without actually committing itself to anything specific.”
The fog that has now descended has a remarkably familiar ring. Do not be surprised if President Donald Trump – whose grasp of history is also spoof-like – throws Weapons of Mass Destruction into his war rhetoric justifying the United States’ bombing of three nuclear facilities in Iran on Sunday.
The United States would – and should – garner widespread support if there was proof that Iran had developed a nuclear weapon or was close to doing so. Such weapons in the hands of stable states are deeply worrying. It would be intolerable if they were in the hands of a radical theocracy like Iran.
However, it is by no means certain that Iran has a nuclear warhead within reach. In his address to the nation following the strikes on Iran, President Trump spoke of “the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” That statement, and the status of Iran’s nuclear programme before bunker bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles hit three facilities, is shrouded in thick fog.
Yesterday’s New York Times did not dispel the fog, but it suggested the old adage once-bitten-twice-shy was ringing in its ears. This is what it said:
“If Iran is truly pursuing a nuclear weapon — which it officially denies — it is taking more time than any nuclear-armed nation in history. The United States developed the Manhattan Project in four years or so, developing the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. The Soviet Union conducted its first test in 1949, only four years later. India, Pakistan and Israel all sped the process. The Iranians have been at it for more than 20 years, and an archive of data stolen from a Tehran warehouse by Israel a number of years ago showed that Iranian engineers were exploring nuclear triggers and other equipment that would only be used to detonate a weapon. That was around 2003, when, according to American intelligence, the engineers received instructions to halt work on weaponization. Comments by Mr. Trump and [Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days suggest they believe that work has resumed, though no evidence to support the contention has been made public.”
There is an awful feeling that history is repeating itself, that Trump’s justification for military action is really no clearer than that in George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Unfortunately, journalists have limited ability to dispel the fog. As Phillip Knightley set out so well in his history of war correspondents, The First Casualty: Governments are adept at manipulating information before, during, and after conflicts. And they have been skilled in the art for a very long time. Knightley’s book starts with the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War.
The Gulf War experience was particularly disturbing because reliable intelligence and expert knowledge from UN weapons inspectors was ignored by officials and politicians wedded to a preferred narrative. The Weapons of Mass Destruction line prevailed in spite of experts claiming a lack of evidence.
Media revelations did not have a real effect until after Iraq had been occupied by US-led forces. In other words, well after the damage had been done.
At least this time there are sections of the media who are not taking at face value what the White House, the Israeli government, and their respective military and intelligence agencies are saying. However, journalists have virtually no way to get accurate on-the-ground information. The best they can do is endeavour to cross-check what they are told and get experts to apply acid tests.
If journalists have difficulty in ascertaining the truth, how susceptible are the public to Donald Trump’s preferred narrative?
There are a number of vulnerabilities that people like Trump exploit.
First, society has become increasingly polarised. It is most noticeable in the United States but do not discount its existence here, too. Conservative hardliners with an innate distrust of Muslims will be easy targets.
Then there are those whose worldview is shaped not by professional news sources but by influencers and opinionated social media posters. It is all too easy to ‘demonise the Ayatollah’.
Thirdly, there are those who simply take what they see and hear at face value, without applying any sort of critical analysis.
For the rest, there are some simple ways that, even if they do not discover all-too-elusive truth, will plant red flags on some of what will become an avalanche of words, sounds and pictures.
It is a form of triangulation: Apply critical thinking, understand the difference between news media and social media, and consult several trustworthy news sources.
The 2025 Digital News report from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute asked where people go if they want to check whether something they see online is true or false. Encouragingly, 38 per cent stated they would go to a trusted news source. Just over a third said they would go to an official source like a government website (good luck with that in Trump’s America) or a search engine. A quarter said they would go to a fact checking website.
However, the twist in the tail is what leads us to trust a particular news site. There wasn’t much difference between Left and Right in the Reuters survey on whether they would go to a trusted news source (44 per cent and 42 per cent). But I would put money on that trust residing in entirely different sources and the basis for that trust reflecting confirmation bias (its my world view) and not necessarily the demonstration of principled professional journalism.
The safest course will probably be a little seasoning. Take what you see and hear with a grain of salt.