ÉTATS-UNIS PERSPECTIVE

The American media coverage of Iran-U.S. tensions reveals a deeply alarmist and Manichaean approach, favoring a rhetoric of confrontation that legitimizes military escalation. American media, particularly Fox News which dominates the sample, construct a narrative where Iran appears as a multidimensional existential threat - energy-related, military, humanitarian, and economic. The emphasis on "water war threats," Iran's hidden long-range ballistic capabilities, and control over the Strait of Hormuz transforms every Iranian action into an act of global aggression requiring a firm American response.

The particular emphasis on validating Trump’s positions ("Trump proven right") reveals a political framing where the U.S. administration is presented as prescient and justified in its preventive actions. The coverage systematically amplifies Iranian threats - from desalination facilities to intercontinental missiles - while minimizing American actions as purely "defensive." This narrative asymmetry is striking: American strikes are described as measured responses, whereas Iranian actions are termed "blackmail," "terrorism," or "aggression."

The silences of this coverage reveal structural American biases. There is no mention of the historical context of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement, or the humanitarian impacts of strikes on civilian infrastructure in Iran. The Iranian perspective only appears in threatening quotes, stripped of any legitimate geopolitical context. This dehumanization of the adversary facilitates public acceptance of an inevitable military escalation.

The dominant tone oscillates between catastrophic urgency and a show of force, with a pervasive martial vocabulary ("obliterate," "annihilate," "threats"). This martial rhetoric is accompanied by temporal framing that creates a sense of imminence: 48-hour ultimatums, attacks "in the coming days," war entering its "fourth week." This accelerated temporality legitimizes rapid decisions and limits space for diplomacy, portrayed as naive against an enemy described as "deceptive" and "terrorist."

Ultimately, this coverage reveals American geopolitical interests in the Middle East: control of energy routes, unconditional support to Israel, and maintenance of regional military hegemony. The coalition with the United Kingdom is valued as proof of international legitimacy, masking America's relative isolation faced by other reluctant allies. This media perspective functions as a foreign policy instrument, preparing U.S. public opinion to accept a prolonged confrontation portrayed as defensive but with clearly offensive goals.