With a pause in U.S. attacks on Iran and reports that Iran is not running at full speed towards the negotiating table, The New York Times appears to be recycling some of its old material. There have been several articles including pro-regime narratives that floated around the news pages at the beginning of the war as well as more accusations that Netanyahu was the driver behind the U.S. attacking Iran.
“The previous supreme leader, who was killed early in the war, had renounced nuclear weapons,” read the sub-headline to The Times’ July 24 piece, “Iran’s New Leader is More Open to Pursuing a Nuclear Weapon, U.S. Intelligence Says.” The article, by Julian Barnes, reported that American intelligence believes the new Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei – who has not been seen in public for five months – is more interested in pursuing a nuclear weapon than his father was. This language appeared again at the conclusion of Julian Barnes, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt’s July 29 article, “Trump Encounters a More Determined Iran as War Widens.”
The narrative of the former Supreme Leader renouncing nuclear weapons was always farcical, as outlined by CAMERA’s Shay Khatiri, who explained it best when he summarized, “[s]ometimes an Islamist military dictatorship with a nuclear program that chants death to America and death to Israel is just an Islamist dictatorship that seeks a nuclear weapon to destroy its enemies with.” At the beginning of the U.S. (and Israel) – Iran war, pro-regime puppets like Ali Vaez and Negar Mortazavi went on the news circuit to tell the western world that the former Khamenei had a religious edict against developing nuclear weapons.
The Times stuck to this narrative, including in its March obituary for Khamenei, when, as CAMERA’s David Gerstman wrote, the paper “ignore[ed] the many Iranian deceptions under Khamenei’s leadership, during which Iran repeatedly violated agreements and misled the international community about its nuclear ambitions.”
In addition, in Isabel Kershner’s July 27 report, “In Washington, Netanyahu Faces a Delicate Balancing Act,” The Times turned to a familiar, recycled narrative when claiming that “many believe [Trump] was dragged into [the war] by Israel.” This argument was made in the first six weeks of the war, in articles on Mar. 2, 2026, and April 7, 2026. CAMERA’s Omri Tubi noted that those early reports contained a conspiracist tone and suggested “Israel holds inordinate sway over the U.S. government.”
Readers should ask The Times why it continues to prioritize familiar narratives over reporting hard realities. By repeating disproven claims about the former Supreme Leader and reviving trope-laden assertions of Israeli puppeteering, The Times seems to function more as an echo chamber for propaganda than fact-based war reporters.