Foreign policy reporting can be tricky. You have to explain what bad people think in an honest way without coming across like you endorse their position. Christiane Amanpour failed in this on Tuesday’s CNN News Central as she omitted key facts related to a recent ceasefire proposal that she claimed could have prevented Iran’s salvo of 180 ballistic missiles on Israel.
Amanpour recalled, “And what the Lebanese foreign minister told me, and this is really extraordinary, and I had not heard it before. That just before the Israeli targeting of the Hezbollah headquarters that assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, that there had been a ceasefire, which the U.S. announced, but what the Lebanese prime minister said to me was that they had got Hezbollah to agree to that ceasefire and apparently they thought that Netanyahu would agree too.”
The ceasefire proposal Amanpour is referring to was for a 21-day temporary ceasefire that would have allowed for negotiations towards a permanent one parallel with a similar ceasefire in Gaza. Israel opposed it because if the first stage ended in failure, all it would have accomplished was allowing Hezbollah to regroup after much of its chain of command had been wiped out and communications sabotaged.
Opposition to the plan was widespread in Israel. The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, declared any temporary ceasefire should last no more than seven days, while the head of the Democrats—a new party formed from the merger of the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties—suggested it be three days, not three weeks.
As it was, Amanpour proceeded to give the Iranian view of things, “Now, the Iranian foreign minister told me in New York during the United Nations that they were showing, and this is again before Friday's assassination, that they were showing restraint and that Hezbollah was showing restraint as well. And that it wanted, you know, to deescalate all of this.”
She continued:
That was the word also from the podium at the United Nations by the Iranian president and they were saying that they are being entrapped and they're trying to resist the notion of being trapped into this war. So, then comes the assassination of their client, Hassan Nasrallah. Now, Hezbollah is not but there—Iran is not there to protect Hezbollah. It's the opposite, Hezbollah is meant to be the frontline troops of Iran. So, this response from Iran is more likely because it feels it has been left no choice, as [Javad] Zarif said to me, in New York, that they may be pushed into this kind of response because everyone is asking, hang on a second, what are you going to do now that your best friend has been assassinated in Lebanon and certainly the so-called Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei’s was very close to Hassan Nasrallah.
Amanpour claims Iran wanted a ceasefire, but it could’ve told Hamas and Hezbollah to quit, but it chose not to. Iran has taken the region to the brink. First by arming Hamas, then by watching as its Hezbollah friends joined the war for no justifiable reason, and now by launching a second massive missile barrage at Israel in the last six months. The tensions in the Middle East can be laid right at Khamenei’s door step.
Here is a transcript for the October 1 show:
CNN News Central
10/1/2024
1:01 PM ET
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: The second thing is that I've been speaking to foreign ministers from the region just today, the Lebanese foreign minister, who is currently in Washington speaking with the Biden administration and trying to get them, as he told me, to really use all their diplomacy and their influence with Israel and with whoever else they have influence with to stop this escalating.
And what the Lebanese foreign minister told me, and this is really extraordinary, and I had not heard it before. That just before the Israeli targeting of the Hezbollah headquarters that assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, that there had been a ceasefire, which the U.S. announced, but what the Lebanese prime minister said to me was that they had got Hezbollah to agree to that ceasefire and apparently they thought that Netanyahu would agree too.
Anyway, as you saw what happened on Friday night, which has led to this escalation. As for Iran, and now the Lebanese prime minister is very concerned that there will somehow be an attempt, whether it's to come to the rescue of Israel or whether Israel tries to get U.S. in. But the U.S. may end up joining this escalation in the Middle East, the foreign minister said. Now, the Iranian foreign minister told me in New York during the United Nations that they were showing, and this is again before Friday's assassination, that they were showing restraint and that Hezbollah was showing restraint as well. And that it wanted, you know, to deescalate all of this.
That was the word also from the podium at the United Nations by the Iranian president and they were saying that they are being entrapped and they're trying to resist the notion of being trapped into this war. So, then comes the assassination of their client, Hassan Nasrallah. Now, Hezbollah is not but there—Iran is not there to protect Hezbollah. It's the opposite, Hezbollah is meant to be the frontline troops of Iran. So, this response from Iran is more likely because it feels it has been left no choice, as Zarif said to me, in New York, that they may be pushed into this kind of response because everyone is asking, hang on a second, what are you going to do now that your best friend has been assassinated in Lebanon and certainly the so-called Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khameni was very close to Hassan Nasrallah.
And there's been a lot of internal divisions inside Iran about how best to respond to what happened with the assassination of Nasrallah. So that is essentially what seems to be going on right now in terms of the big picture.
