CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar Monday regarding the killing of bloodthirsty Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. military airstrike ordered by President Donald Trump last week.
Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal — except that Ebtekar has just a bit of a checkered past and is about as anti-American as you can get.
What did she do?
For starters, she served as spokeswoman for the Iranian students who took 52 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Oh, and Ebtekar acknowledged in a televised interview that year that she’d shoot those same hostages in their heads if the U.S. tried to rescue them.
Here’s the clip. The relevant portion starts just after the 2-minute mark:
(snip)
What’s more, Ebtekar — now 59 and Iran’s vice president for women and family affairs — was “an organizer and participant” in the hostage crisis, the Times of Israel reported, citing a statement signed by more than 100 expat Iranians around the world.
How did Amanpour handle Ebtekar’s role in the hostage crisis?
Amanpour failed to note Ebteker’s role in the Iran hostage crisis during the interview, according to NewsBusters and the Daily Caller.
Instead the CNN journalist — who has called herself “truthful, not neutral” when it comes to her reporting — characterized Ebteker as “a committed revolutionary. You were very prominent in the early days of the Islamic revolution, but you became more of a reformist as well, and you supported the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal and diplomacy to …. settle some issues.”
Amanpour’s description of Ebteker begins at the 1:45 mark:
What else was said during the interview?
As you might expect, Ebteker lauded Soleimani and criticized Trump and the U.S. government.
“The American government, the American president made a serious miscalculation, they made a serious mistake by assassinating, by taking this terrorist action, against Commander Soleimani, and I’m sure that they regret what they’ve done,” she said.
Soleimani led Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, consorted with terror organizations, ordered the killing of Americans, and most recently was believed to be behind the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Nevertheless, Ebteker said Soleimani’s killing kick-started a “wave of awakening” in Iran and that there’s now “great opportunity” for the Islamic country, which “has been righteous in its positions” and “always working for peace and stability in this region.”
Iranian Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar: “The American president made a serious miscalculation, they made a seriou… https://t.co/WGjOp5gMdK
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) 1578421825.0
The Daily Caller said Amanpour did little to challenge Ebteker’s claim that Soleimani’s killing was an act of terror by the U.S. — but added that the CNN journalist did say Soleimani wasn’t favorably viewed outside Iran.
*see full story with video by The Blaze