BBC does the Cold War

Unlike many observers of the BBC (such as Stephen Pollard), I do not consider the corporation's news output to be politically biased. In many respects, the problem with BBC journalism is the opposite. Editors and journalists are so determined on objectivity that they pursue it with a literalism that supplants sense, confusing detachment with equidistance.

Read this account, by the BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus, of "The politics of missile defence". It is in the main a factual recitation of the issues and argument, whereupon, Marcus concludes:

Some pundits have dubbed the new US system the "son of Star Wars". The reference to the Reagan-era defensive shield that aspired to make nuclear weapons obsolete represents a wild exaggeration. But the label is sticking.

And there is a danger that "son of Star Wars" could provoke something that looks a little like a reprise of the Cold War with Moscow.

A fortnight ago President Putin gave a speech in Munich castigating the US's "very dangerous" approach to the international order. The BBC itself reported the speech in these terms: "BBC defence and security correspondent Rob Watson, in Munich, said Mr Putin's speech was a strident performance which may well be remembered as a turning point in international relations."

If it is a turning point - as I hope it will be - then the reason will be a belated recognition by the Western democracies that Putin is not their ally: witness, among many other obstructive and destructive acts, his encouragement of Iranian intransigence, and his sabotaging the prospects for Middle East peace negotations by unilaterally treating with Hamas.

So just who is being provocative here? Why are BBC correspondents so averse to exercising critical judgement that they treat every event in international relations as discrete and without context? Why - while we're on the subject - are US relations with Iran typically characterised as "The American hostility towards Iran"? It is not the United States that is in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that has lied systematically to the UN and the IAEA over its nuclear programme, that has smuggled Improvised Explosive Devices into Iraq to be used against a military force whose presence is authorised by UN resolution, and that has used apocalyptic rhetoric anticipating the annihilation of a member state of the United Nations. Who is the bellicose party?