Daniel Greenfield

(Front Page Magazine) Last week’s social media story of Tucker Carlson flying on a private jet to Israel for a few hours just to do a combative ‘interview’ with Ambassador Mike Huckabee at the airport, fake an ‘incident’ in which Tucker pushed a story to one of his ex-employees at the Daily Mail claiming that he’d been seized by Israeli security (video released shows that didn’t happen) while also alleging that he was afraid Israel would shoot down his private jet (he could have just flown commercial, but that’s for little people) seemed like a weird senseless Twitter bubble.

But social media isn’t just social media and the whole thing has the hallmarks of an international information operation involving foreign governments.

Why charter a private jet to fly to Israel, never leave the airport, just to release a distorted version of an interview with a U.S. ambassador full of lies and bizarre claims: one of which Tucker already had to walk back?

It helps if you understand that Tucker Carlson is just a means to an end.

The timing of the interview comes in the middle of internal debates within the Trump administration about whether to make a deal with Iran or take down the regime. Huckabee was targeted because he’s seen as one of the people opposed to an Obama Deal 2.0. Tucker has argued that it’s fine if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, that Islam and Sharia are good things, and that “diversity is our strength”. These are the opposite of the things that Tucker claimed to believe a few years ago, but we already learned from his previously released text messages that he violently hated Trump even while pretending to like him and praise him on FOX News.

Who’s the real Tucker? Frankly, who cares. This is an industry where people play roles. And no talking head should really be assumed to be authentic. More important than what Tucker really believes, is what he’s doing, and that points us toward who he’s working for.

The Huckabee interview was quickly followed by a joint statement by the Saudis, Qatar and other Muslim countries condemning him based on a distorted clip. All of it preceded by mass attacks from Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

That is the part where you can see the puppet strings on the puppet and understand the information war.

The theatrics around the interview were just meant to garner publicity for the interview and, more importantly, for the next step, the coordinated response by the Islamic enemy nations pressuring Trump.

Everything else was just meant to focus Trump’s attention and our attention.

That’s how information operations work. Tucker did his best and has earned his house in Qatar, the constant appearances at Muslim conferences and whatever investments he’s managed to pick up. Sure he had to sell his soul and ally with America’s enemies, but he delivered for them. And what he delivered was us.

Our attention. Tucker made a show as a setup for the Qatari press release as part of an effort to marginalize Huckabee and conservatives within the Trump administration in favor of Koch hirelings who want an Iran deal.

The level of foreign manipulation of social media is reaching new levels of sophistication. It’s something we’ll need to deal with if we don’t just want to replace the mainstream media with mainstream media personalities working for Islam.