E31: re:joinder - No War with Iran!

In this re:joinder episode, Calvin presents Alex and Sophie with a set of op-eds -- all published in ostensibly liberal magazines -- that retroactively justify President Trump’s Jan. 3, 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, major general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. In our analysis, we expose the presuppositions latent in these articles’ narratives of post-9/11 US foreign policy, filling in some missing context about US ground and proxy wars in the Middle East since the second-half of the 20th century. We break down the tactics used in these articles to construct Soleimani as an enemy figure for US & European audiences, part of a broader US strategy of demonizing the government of Iran. We also compare these pieces to discourses about prior US assassination targets such as ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Finally, we consider how American war discourse is shaped by our (lack of) proximity to its material consequences, and consider how this constrains political possibilities in the US. 

Texts Analyzed in this Episode

Aarabi, K. (Jan. 7, 2020). Suleimani’s Killing Could Change the Middle East for the Better. Foreign Policy.

Bergen, P. (Jan 3, 2020). The killing of Iran's General Soleimani is hugely significant (opinion). CNN.com. 

Sadjapour, K. (Jan 9, 2020). “Why the U.S. Assassination of Soleimani Is a Windfall for Iran's Mullahs.” Time. 

Relevant Works of Rhetorical Scholarship

Cap, P. (2013). Legitimisation in Political Discourse: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective on the Modern US War Rhetoric. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Cloud, D. L. (2004). “To veil the threat of terror”: Afghan women and the <clash of civilizations> in the imagery of the US war on terrorism. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 90(3), 285-306.

Engels, J., & Saas, W. O. (2013). On acquiescence and ends-less war: An inquiry into the new war rhetoric. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 99(2), 225-232.

Flanagan, J. C. (2004). Woodrow Wilson's" Rhetorical Restructuring": The Transformation of the American Self and the Construction of the German Enemy. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 7(2), 115-148.

Ivie, R. L. (1980). Images of savagery in American justifications for war. Communications Monographs, 47(4), 279-294.

Lakoff, G. (1991). Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf. Peace Research, 25-32.

Oddo, J. (2011). War legitimation discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in four US presidential addresses. Discourse & Society, 22(3), 287-314.

Oddo, J. (2014). Intertextuality and the 24-hour News Cycle: A Day in the Rhetorical Life of Colin Powell's UN Address. Michigan State University Press.

Oddo, J. (2018). The Discourse of Propaganda: Case Studies from the Persian Gulf War and the War on Terror. Penn State Press.

Vicaro, M. P. (2016). Deconstitutive rhetoric: The destruction of legal personhood in the Global War on Terrorism. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 102(4), 333-352.

Wander, P. (1984). The rhetoric of American foreign policy. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(4), 339-361.