A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri

The New York Times coverage of the US-Iran nuclear talks seems written from Iran’s perspective.

One Times article reports that the talks “come at a perilous moment, as Iran has lost the air defenses around its key nuclear sites because of precise Israeli strikes last October. And Iran can no longer rely on its proxy forces in the Middle East — Hamas, Hezbollah and the now-ousted Assad government in Syria — to threaten Israel with retaliation.”

For Israel and America, it’s a less perilous moment, as we no longer have to worry about our planes getting shot down by Iranian air defenses. “Perilous” seems to be from the point of view of the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime. For America and Iran, it’s a hopeful moment, as we may finally eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat or, even better yet, the terror-sponsoring and oppressive Iranian regime.

The same Times article, by David Sanger and Farnaz Fassihi, reports, “Many Iranians have begun to talk openly about the need for the country to build a weapon since it has proved fairly defenseless in a series of missile exchanges with Israel last year.”

That spins the Iranian nuclear weapon as a matter of Iranian defense, when in fact the Iranians have been pursuing it for decades as part of their goal of wiping Israel off the map. Even the Times article concedes as much later on, reporting that “Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been operating for decades and is spread around the country, much of it deep underground.”

The same Times article goes on to contend, “If Mr. Trump does not achieve full dismantlement, he will be forced to confront questions about whether he got anything more than the Obama administration got a decade ago. Mr. Trump dismissed that accord as a ‘disaster’ and an embarrassment, noting it would lift all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear production by 2030. Now his challenge, experts say, will be accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did.”

Who are these unnamed “experts”? Even if Trump simply walks away from the negotiating table without giving Iran the sanctions relief that Obama and Biden did, relief that allowed funds and weapons to flow to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, he’ll accomplish more than Obama did. The Obama deal provided a $700 billion subsidy to the terror-sponsoring regime that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, in exchange for unverifiable short-term promises of a pause in work on nuclear weapons, so “accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did” is a low bar. The Times “experts” apparently don’t include any with that opinion, or, if they do, the Times doesn’t share that view with readers.

In another article, the Times portrays it as a “concession” that Iran is merely willing to talk to America.

Iran has been ardently pursuing negotiations with the US for 30 years, since the Clinton administration, because those negotiations have the potential to pay off in sanctions relief of the sort granted by President Obama’s nuclear deal, which enriched the Iranian regime so that it was able to fund more Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism.

The Times reports in another piece previewing the negotiations, also by Farnaz Fassihi: “On Saturday, Iran and the United States will hold the first round of talks in Oman. If this progresses to face-to-face meetings, it would be a sign of a major concession by Iran, which has insisted it does not want to meet Americans directly.”

That’s ridiculous. Merely negotiating isn’t a “major concession” — if anything, it’s a concession by America, which might reasonably take the position that Iran must shutter its nuclear weapons and missiles programs, release political prisoners, and cease its backing of terrorist organizations before earning a meeting with the US. For Iran, a “major concession” would be verifiably abandoning the nuclear and missiles programs or ending its hostility toward Israel and America. Simply having a meeting is not a “major concession.” That’s Iranian spin, which the New York Times is passing along unlabeled to readers.

The New York Times has a long and not credible history of cheerleading for Iran nuclear deals with the US. Back in 2022, it relentlessly, breathlessly hyped a deal:

March 8, 2022: “Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion…”

Jan. 31, 2022: “US and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran…”

Jan. 12, 2022: “…the US and Iran Inch Closer to a Nuclear Pact”

Yet that deal never happened, and the Times never really adequately explained to readers why it so misled them about the likelihood of it.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.