Fake News Might Have Just Stopped a War

On Tuesday night, many of us participated in the odd and quintessentially Trump-era ritual of watching a geopolitical crisis unfold in real time on Twitter. A retaliatory Iranian missile strike seemed at first like the beginning of a full-scale shooting war, but it quickly became apparent that the damage was limited and that this may have been an “off-ramp” allowing both sides to de-escalate . As usual, along with breaking news and statements from officials, there was an awful lot of dubious analysis, propaganda, and complete nonsense. The spread of misinformation and bad-faith conjecture in our “post-truth” world has, in other contexts, inflamed tensions and inspired violence. This time, the power of “fake news” might have actually stopped a dangerous situation from getting even more deadly. Iran fired 15 missiles at two bases hosting U.S. troops that were heavily fortified and on notice after days of warnings from Tehran that it would soon retaliate for the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The U.S. had ample notice after the missiles were launched thanks to early-warning systems, and no one was killed. U.S. officials believe the Iranians deliberately targeted the missiles to avoid casualties. You wouldn’t know that from Iranian state television however.According to Reuters, state networks claimed that 80 “American terrorists” had been killed and that the bases had sustained heavy damage in what Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called a “crushing response” to Soleimani’s death. The Iranian regime was in a bind: For its own credibility, it had to respond to Soleimani’s killing, but it can ill-afford to get into a sustained shooting war with the United States. The solution? Launch an attack minor enough that the enemy can brush it off while telling the Iranian public it was a devastating blow. After the missile launch, the action moved, naturally enough, to social media, where the two sides performed an odd de-escalation dance for their millions of Twitter followers. First, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif signaled that the attacks had “concluded” and that no more measures would be forthcoming. He also referred to international law to justify the attack—a blatant misrepresentation as the article he cites allows for self-defense, not reprisal. (The U.S. has also had some trouble with that distinction this week.) Observers held their breath to see if Trump, who does not exactly take perceived insults lightly, would get the message. Just a few minutes later, Trump, remarkably, took this invitation to de-escalate as intended. tweeting a bizarrely chipper “All is well!” message and brushing off the attack, as if he hadn’t promised just days earlier to bomb 52 sites in Iran if the country’s leaders even thought about trying to avenge Soleimani. In his statement from the White House on Friday morning, Trump may not have lied as blatantly as Iranian state television, but he was certainly misleading. He began by stating drama

Stopped