No, Not World War III (Again)

Alt ideologues really are desperate for it to be a new world war.

by Ben Cohen

In this week’s episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast (out this Sunday), Justin and I went to great lengths to explain why Iran’s attack on Israel last week was not the beginning of World War III. The attack, we argued, was telegraphed long in advance and had very little chance of doing damage. Furthermore, an Israeli response — if there was going to be one — would be carefully calibrated so as not to escalate the crisis.

A few hours after recording the podcast, I began getting text messages from friends declaring World War III really was happening, that Israel had attacked Iran and the end was nigh.

Never rely on Twitter

Early reports were only available on Twitter, so it was quite hard to figure out what was going on. But for a few moments I wondered whether I had got this all horribly wrong. The political fringes seemed vindicated and were loudly condemning President Biden, the neocons and Deep State, Zionist liberals etc, etc for getting us into a new global war. Here was Cenk The Horrible’s take:

As a general rule of thumb, the fringe alt narratives are almost always inversions of reality, so I steadied myself and waited for more information to filter through. And when it did, it confirmed my suspicions that the Israeli’s had done exactly what Justin and I had predicted. From the New York Times:

Israel’s strike appeared less damaging than expected, allowing Iranian officials and state-run news outlets to downplay its significance, at least for now. In public, no high-ranking Iranian official had blamed Israel for the strike by Friday evening, even if in private several had acknowledged Israel’s hand. The lack of public attribution from the Iranian government or acknowledgment of responsibility from Israel gave Tehran the chance to move on without feeling humiliated, analysts said.

Iranian officials said that no enemy aircraft had been detected in Iranian airspace and that the main attack — apparently on a military base in central Iran — had been initiated by small unmanned drones that were most likely launched from inside Iranian territory. The nature of the attack had precedent: Israel used similar methods in an attack on a military facility in Isfahan last year.

By sunrise, Iranian state-run news outlets were projecting a swift return to normalcy, broadcasting footage of calm street scenes, while officials publicly dismissed the impact of the attack. Airports were also reopened after a brief overnight closure.

So no, no World War III — again.

Twitter is still the best place to go for early/breaking news, but under Elon Musk the platform it is increasingly hard to filter out the bullshit. Alt ideologues have now taken control of the ship and are pushing narratives that suit their agenda. We dig into why this on the podcast this week, so please tune in to listen.

For now, rest easy. The situation in the Middle East is still horrendous, but not apocalyptic. And remember, the more hysterical the reactions, the less likely they are to be true.

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