Regardless of how you feel about the US possibly going to war Iran, just consider the fact that the highest-ranking members of America’s foreign policy should be able to do better in an interview like this..
Knowing the population of a country we’re about to go to war with might seem irrelevant in the heat of a surprise attack, when survival and victory are all that matter. But that’s not the case with Iran. For over 30 years, we’ve labeled Iran everything from a state sponsor of terrorism to a member of the world’s “Axis of Evil.” This isn’t new. This is historical, ongoing foreign policy, and it demands informed the leadership.
It’s expected that a journalist looks up Iran’s population before conducting an interview about Iran. How much more should we expect that a US senator on the Foreign Relations Committee know the basic facts about a nation they’re discussing possibly attacking? Especially if they are going to do media appearances and speak on the subject?
Have we not learned from our previous military interventions? Blowback is a term that describes what happens when our actions abroad lead to unintended yet oftentimes predictable consequences. And in every major conflict where we’ve intervened with our military, blowback has come, not just from the government, but from the people - civilians whose lives we’ve disrupted by way of bombs and the death that comes with them. That’s why population and ethnic composition aren’t random trivia, they are foundational to understanding what kind of deeper conflicts you might ignite.
“I don’t sit around memorizing population tables” was not as clever of a response as Senator Cruz probably thought it was. Carlson didn’t ask him to rank countries by population size, he asked how many people live in the country we are considering bombing. That’s a question rooted in reality, war brings death, and often a lot of it. Actually knowing how many people live in the country you may go to war with is not academic, it’s responsible.
Basic intelligence- like population and demographics- is something we expect journalist, analyst, and even the lowest grade intelligence officers to study and understand. And all of that work is meant to inform people that sit on the foreign relations committee like Senator Ted Cruz currently does. Shouldn’t we expect the same from our senators? Especially those that sit on the Foreign Relations Committee about the possibility of war with Iran?
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