When done properly, a journalist’s analysis can provide audiences with deeper insight and meaningful context. That’s not what Matthew Chance did in his June 16 CNN piece, titled “With no clear exit strategy in Iran, Israel risks another war with no end.” Instead, Chance offered a flat, misleading portrayal that substituted platitudes for perspective and left readers with a deeply inadequate understanding of the conflict.
At the core of Chance’s argument is the claim that by launching strikes against Iran, Israel is embroiling itself in an unwinnable war with no clear end. Echoing talking points of American critics of past American wars, he repeatedly lamented Israel’s supposed lack of an “exit strategy,” concluding that “Israelis face yet another grinding, dangerous war of attrition, with no time limits and no clear end.”
But this analysis isn’t merely flawed—it actively misleads CNN’s audience by erasing critical context.
Even a basic grasp of history makes apparent the absurdity of Chance’s obsession with Israeli “exit strategies.”
Israel has, in fact, been clear about its “exit strategy”: survival. Chance’s failure to comprehend this reflects a broader issue in American journalism—namely, the mistaken belief that American political anxieties and policy frameworks are universally applicable.
More fundamentally, Chance’s framing exemplifies another recurring flaw in media coverage: a refusal or inability to engage with the motives and actions of parties outside the United States and its allies.
The Iranian regime’s hostility toward Israel’s very existence is not theoretical or rhetorical—it is operational and longstanding. Tehran has not only pledged to destroy Israel but has built an expansive network of proxies to do so. Hamas and Hezbollah, both avowedly genocidal in their aims, are the most well-known examples. The Houthis, whose motto proclaims “Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse upon the Jews,” are another.
A Twitter post by Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei threatening to destroy Israel.
Over just the past two years, these groups—backed, armed, and often directed by Iran—have launched thousands of rockets, missiles, and drones at Israeli civilians. Yet CNN and Chance show scant interest in probing the “exit strategies” of Iran and its proxies. Why?
Since before its independence in 1948, Israel has faced repeated efforts to erase its existence. Upon the country’s establishment, the head of the Arab League vowed “a war of extermination and momentous massacre.” Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Egyptian President Nasser declared his goal: “total war… to destroy Israel.” During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad vowed to “liberate the whole land” of Israel. And terror organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad—responsible for endless waves of deadly attacks—are ideologically committed to the same outcome.
The October 7, 2023 massacre was not an aberration. It was a chilling expression of these long-declared ambitions.
Perhaps Chance would be less confused about Israel’s “exit strategy” if he paid more attention to the stated intentions and actions of Israel’s enemies—from Nasser and Assad to Khamenei.
After Israel launched its opening strikes on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unequivocal: “Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.”
That’s the strategy. Survival. And for the Jewish state, survival is a constant, existential challenge.
This isn’t the United States embroiling itself in conflicts half a world away. This is a small nation, surrounded by enemies, doing what it must to endure.
CNN’s audience deserves better than Matthew Chance’s half-baked and misleading analysis. They deserve journalism that contextualizes, informs, and tells the full story.