Not the Azu we thought he was

From the very first line, Mr. Azu Ishiekwene’s piece, ‘Not the Iran We Thought It Was,’ reads like a fatigued script from antiquated era, one where the audience could be spoon-fed half-truths without question. It’s a deliberate effort in the ‘Manufacturing of Consent’, a concept dissected by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in their famous book. Unfortunately for Azu, and his ilk, this is not 1980s or the 1990s when writers like him could have their way unchallenged. Readers are now, not only more discerning not to swallow such a bulletin from the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, they are also more equipped to critically consume information and make better judgement.

No doubt, Azu’s opening gambit, painting Iran as some kind of regional Goliath looming over a defenceless Israel, is not just lazy analysis; it’s a deliberate distortion of reality. Azu was intentional in dropping the Biblical example to conjure up such a spiritual invincibility of Israel in the minds of his readers. He was particularly creative by recalling the military exploit of the Persian Empire under Cyrus. His powerful propaganda skill, however, failed the test of reality. The idea that geography alone dictates power is absurd when Israel, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and backed by the might of the Western military-industrial complex, especially the US that every second threatens to directly join in its war, has been the dominant aggressor in the region for decades.

Azu’s piece is also replete with a relentless parade of revisionism, as though he believes his readers were living on Mars and thus untouched by the democratization of information in the digital era. The veteran journalist writes with the confidence of a man who has never had to fact-check his claims, regurgitating Israel’s spokespersons’ talking points as if they were gospel. But that’s not even fair to the Israelis whose minister was seen two days ago, on a viral video, confessing to the blunder of underestimating the efficacy of the Iranian missile technology. The Iranians have been churning out series of evacuation orders to inhabitants of Tel Avis and other major cities. Yet Azu framed Iran’s military capabilities as diminished, ignoring the fact the world has already witnessed (still witnessing) how Iranian missiles are slicing through Israel’s much-vaunted air defenses with unsettling ease. Azu chose to tell a different story. He stuck to the tall tale of the impenetrability of those layers of defence and how Israel has taken control of Tehran’s airspace.

Disappointingly, Mr. Azu continued to display selective memories throughout the propaganda piece. One standout was the brazen attempt to rewrite history. To suggest that Israel’s strike on Iran was a reaction to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Isreal, is to ignore decades of Netanyahu’s warmongering. This is a man who has been crying wolf about Iran’s nuclear program since the early 1990s, each time claiming Tehran was just months or weeks away from weaponizing its nuclear project, despite repeated denials by the country, the claim corroborated by the officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). For instance, in 1992, it was three to five years according to Netanyahu. By 2009, he was comically waving cartoon bombs at the UN, insisting Iran was a year away. In 2012, he drew his infamous red line, warning of an imminent breakout. And just last year, he was back at the UN with his nuclear noose theatrics, once again claiming Iran was on the brink. Yet Azu, in his infinite wisdom, reduces all of this to a simple matter of October 7, as if Netanyahu hadn’t been waiting for an excuse and a moment to escalate.

And let’s not even get started on the Hamas-as-Iranian-proxy sophistry. Yes Iran has openly supported Hamas but it never started as a proxy. The irony therefore is almost too much to bear. Hamas, as any honest historian will recall, was initially nurtured by Israel itself as a counterweight to Yassar Arafat’s PLO. It was an Israel game that backfired. The idea that Iran “stole” Hamas from Israel is not just wrong, it’s a perverse rewriting of cause and effect. Resistance movements don’t spring up in a vacuum as they are born from oppression, occupation and the relentless grinding of boots on throats. In the case of Palestine this has been the case since 1940s. But Azu would rather pretend that has never been the case.

Ultimately, Azu’s write up isn’t just a piece of bad journalism, it’s a case study of how narratives are manufactured to serve hegemonies or to stress certain biases, in a brazen, unprofessional fashion. The writer ignores inconvenient truths, amplifies convenient lies, and expects his readers to nod along like agama lizards. But the world has changed. The digital age has made information a weapon that can’t be monopolized anymore, and audiences are no longer content to be fed fairy tales. If Mr. Azu wants to be taken seriously, he might want to start by going to drawing board, taking reality seriously. Until then, his words will remain exactly what they are, a relic of a dying era, out of touch, and out of step.

Musa writes in from Abuja.