The Daily Caller editor in chief Tucker Carlson faced an onslaught of criticism yesterday for telling Fox News “Red Eye” viewers that “Iran deserves to be annihilated.” Carlson’s comments, first reported on ThinkProgress, led The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to observe, “This is the sort of rhetoric that leads to war. I have no doubt this clip will be played over and over again in Tehran by a regime eager to prove that America wants to — to borrow a phrase — wipe Iran off the map.” In emails to Glenn Greenwald, Carlson largely walked back his statement, saying, “I think attacking could be a disaster for the US and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election.”

Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Carlson tried to walk back his comments:

I was actually trying to make the opposite point but I was doing it in a very inarticulate way. [...] I was actually urging caution. I’m not particularly hawkish to be totally honest with you.

Later in the show, facing a question from a call-in guest about his statement calling for the annihilation of Iran, Carlson responded, “I misrepresented my own views,” and attempted to clarify his position:

The point I was actually making on that show on Tuesday night was, which I’m sure you didn’t see, while Iran’s government clearly is evil and I would like to see Iran’s government crushed, I think there probably are consequences to bombing Iran and going to war with Iran that might hurt us. Specifically, what would it do to the cost of energy?

The two C-Span segments in which Carlson addresses his “Red Eye” comments are combined below:

Indeed, gas prices would, no doubt, skyrocket if the U.S. began another war in the Middle East. But that’s just one of many consequences. The U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet based in Bahrain, U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Iraq’s stability could all be put in danger and Hezbollah could stage terrorist attacks on Israeli and/or U.S. targets. All of that aside, the large number of U.S. and Iranian casualties that would result from any attempt to “annihilate” Iran or overthrow the government with outside military force is well worth considering before casually discussing launching a third U.S. war in the Middle East.

While the IAEA has said it has concerns about military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. officials have said that its unclear whether the Islamic Republic has decided on building a bomb, an attack would give reason for Iran to weaponize its program.

Tucker Carlson’s efforts to walk back his incendiary statements are appreciated but there are other reasons, apart from rising gas prices, to be reticent to “annihilate” a country of 74 million people.

As the “drumbeat to war” with Iran, as Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) warns of, grows louder, a number of journalists have begun to compare the hawkish rhetoric from pundits with the calls for military action against Iraq in 2002. Scott Shane, writing on the frontpage of today’s New York Times, observed, “Echoes of the period leading up to the Iraq war in 2003 are unmistakable, igniting a familiar debate over whether journalists are overstating Iran’s progress toward a bomb.” Indeed, the ombudsman of The Washington Post and the public editor of The New York Times criticized their own journalists for overstating the evidence of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Over the past week, journalists have raised the alarm about the increasing carelessness of the mainstream media in hyping the calls for war with Iran. But Fox News commentator and The Daily Caller editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson openly called for war against Iran and argued for the full-scale annihilation of the Islamic Republic during an appearance on Fox News’s late-night show Red Eye. Carlson responded to a question about U.S. military action:

CARLSON: I think we are the only country with the moral authority [...] sufficient to do that. [The U.S. is] the only country that doesn’t seek hegemony in the world. I do think, I’m sure I’m the lone voice in saying this, that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.

Carlson, having called for the annihilation of Iran — a country with a population of over 74 million people — went on to acknowledge that “we should assess what will happen to the price of energy were we to do that.” Watch the clip:

Carlson doesn’t bother to make a case for why the U.S. should destroy Iran. But presumably he’s referring to the crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. However, neither the IAEA nor U.S. intelligence reports conclude that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA and U.S. intelligence have expressed concerns about possible military aspects to Iran’s nuclear program and suspicions about Iran’s program intensified after Tehran refused IAEA inspectors access to facilities thought to be used for tests on how to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran also refused to agree to a process by which it would address IAEA concerns about “possible military dimensions” to its nuclear program.

But, much as in the case of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, many journalists and politicians are ignoring the facts on the ground and pushing forward with calls for increasingly aggressive actions. Carlson, however, may stand alone in publicly calling for Iran’s outright annihilation.