By Max Hastings
Last week it was reported that Iran's missile stockpile has been reduced from about 5,000 to about 1,000, and that the U.S. and its allies are now firing one or two Patriot missiles for every incoming air threat, instead of the barrages that were fired at the beginning. In other words, both sides are facing a shortage of ammunition.
But, in the long run, my concern is the degradation – in fact, complete depletion – of another American weapon, which I consider more important than the material ones: faith in the truth of what the US leader says to the world about war, peace and all the rest.
The situation reaches a breaking point when President Donald Trump claims that his administration is holding promising talks with the Iranians, while the Iranians deny it, and there is global uncertainty about whether his version or the one presented by Tehran's fanatics should be accepted. Similarly, when he says that the war is "almost won," no one knows if this is a prelude to a new U.S. bombardment, ground invasion, or ceasefire.
Throughout history, governments sometimes lie, especially in times of war. There was a saying among Napoleon's soldiers when they started losing battles: "Lie like bulletins." They had lost confidence in the official briefings from Paris.
As early as two centuries ago, visitors to Russia complained about the chronic falsehood of its people, which remains undiminished in its leadership to this day. In the early years of World War II, the British government found it increasingly difficult to cover up the humiliating defeats of its troops.
However, none of this meant then, nor does it mean now, that it does not matter for a great nation to lose its reputation as trustworthy, as was the case with the US under Trump. It is impossible, in the midst of war, to tell the whole truth. But it is of great value that "our side" – whatever it may be – must be more reliable than the enemy. Almost no European ally believes the president's claim, the cornerstone of his argument for starting the war, that Iran's nuclear ambitions posed a direct threat to either Israel or the West.
I have just re-read a little manual received by every American soldier who landed in Britain during World War II, which had been issued by the Ministry of War. Among other wise advice, he told soldiers: "We can defeat Hitler's propaganda with a weapon of our own: simple, common sense, understanding the obvious truths." Similarly, Winston Churchill and his ministers realized that one of their most powerful tools was the famous voice of truth, the BBC.
Contrary to the illusion that many Americans have, the BBC is not a government organization, but an independent company run by administrators and funded by reciprocal fees. Throughout World War II, millions of people in occupied Europe risked their freedom to hear his news. The penalty for those caught by the Germans listening was the concentration camps.
The magic words with which his expressive announcers began their broadcasts – "here London" – resonated throughout the world. After 1945, this BBC habit remained. Tens of millions of people, especially in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, still prefer the BBC's news in foreign languages to local news, which is subject to strict censorship by their own governments. The Voice of America never gained the same prestige or reputation for impartiality, but it has nevertheless been useful and influential.
The British and US governments have often been fiercely critical of the content of both the BBC and VOA. Churchill sometimes lashed out at the former's alleged lack of loyalty. Margaret Thatcher deplored what she considered to be his excessive impartiality, especially during the 1982 Falklands War. On the British side of the Atlantic, however, no government has dared to do anything worse to the BBC than to complain about it. Politicians, including Churchill, understood the priceless value of his given integrity.
The Nazis took the opposite approach to propaganda, hiring an American-Irish renegade named William Joyce to address the British people. Throughout the war he broadcast from Berlin a daily torrent of lies, laughing gleefully as he uttered them in a voice that made him known to Churchill's people as Lord Haw-Haw.
A bulletin from Berlin might have included this kind of irony, based on fake news: "You should ask your prime minister to tell you where the aircraft carrier Illustrious is... I'll tell you where the Illustrious is – at the bottom of the sea, where its crew feeds the fish, along with so many other British ships and their crews. The German torpedoes, [or, by its pronunciation, Gairman] send them all to feed the fish!". The provocative tone was no different from that of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, when he described the fate of the Iranians being bombed by the US.
However, it is not certain whether dancing on the graves of your enemies and exaggerating in such a way about your own successes ultimately impresses anyone. The British learned to have fun listening to Lord Ho-Ho's fantasies, which gave them a much-needed laugh, although this did not stop them from hanging Joyce in 1946.
Today, Trump is attacking the institutions of truth while spreading blatant lies, such as his claim that a Tomahawk missile that allegedly hit a school in Tehran was Iranian. He is seeking to shut down VOA and has filed a lawsuit against the BBC seeking billions of dollars in damages in a Florida court. Worse still, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump "servant," is threatening to revoke licenses for U.S. media outlets that do not broadcast the government's fictional narrative of the war.
Trump's attack actually reminds me of a 1917 Punch magazine cartoon in which the German Kaiser Wilhelm II is outraged on the front page of a British newspaper and says: "I have never seen a more abominable web of deliberate truths before!"
White House representatives would say, at least privately, that we now live in a post-truth world: that MAGA followers don't wait for their leaders to tell them what's true, nor do they mind being lied to. A Florida woman told a British journalist last month: "Who cares if what Trump says is true?"
These people are unaware of how low America's prestige has fallen. However, this is of enormous importance, not only for the present or the rest of Trump's term, but also for the future of the United States. If the country chooses to express itself and behave in a way that is morally no different from that of the rival superpowers, why shouldn't other countries choose China or Russia as partners, instead of America?
There comes a time for every person and every nation to decide, wrote the poet James Russell Lowell almost two centuries ago, in the clash of Truth and Falsehood, on the side of good or evil. It is extremely dangerous for any country, no matter how rich and sovereign it may be, to base its entire political system on the belief that it will forever enjoy military and economic supremacy, that only power can maintain its hegemony.
America is no longer considered, especially in Europe, worthy of trust. To quote again that American soldier's manual from 1942: "It is militarily foolish to criticize your allies." Even superpowers need friends, but in America there are few left who, after so many insults from Washington, sincerely respect their leadership or believe what they say.
Truth is not just a virtue. It is a weapon that this government has recklessly broken with its own hands, at the same time that it is waging an armed war in which almost no one, except the Israelis, sees value or reason.
