Journalists, academics and commenters Michael Doran and Gadi Taub, from the centre right perspective, give informed views of where the war is at and where it might end. Including pessimistic predictions. And including disagreements amongst themselves.
At the end Gadi says that in Israel the Left mainly looks at views from the left, but the Right tends to look at both left and right. Michael says it’s the same in America. I agree. I’ve posted a number of times studies (e.g. “What the Left and Right read”, “Bubbles and Vortexes”) that show conservatives read and watch more widely across the political spectrum than does the Left. Part of the reason being that the left is surrounded by the default media, which is the Mainstream media and which leans left: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, New York Times, Washington Post.
“What’s the truth?”. Michael says “I don’t know”. Re: whether Arab states are urging Trump to continue to the end, or to stop. Polar opposites. The truth of that will come out eventually. Meantime “I don’t know” is a decent answer.
Sometimes we know an Important Truth without necessarily knowing The Detailed Truth. Like: reports that 40,000 Iranians were murdered by the regime. Or is it “only” 7,000? The Important Truth is: “it’s a lot”. The Detailed Truth can come later.
The best thing to get to the Truth or a good approximation of it is: read around the subject. Left, right and middle, including Social Media. A Venn Diagram with “the Truth” somewhere in the common area.
Which for folks on the Left who follow the Iran war, means reading not just BBC and Bloomberg, but also people like Doran & Taub, above.
There’s also media agglomeration sites, like Ground News. Which specifically gather all the views, far left to far right.
There’s also one’s own Common Sense. The sniff test. Does it seem true. Not always the best test, biut surely a good first filter.
