Was Twitter Instrumental In Deescalating U.S. - Iran Tensions?

Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.

We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 8, 2020

All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2020

Sirwan Kajjo, VOA: Did Tweets Help Deescalate Recent US-Iran Tensions?

WASHINGTON - Minutes after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles against U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this month, its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, came out with a tweet, saying that his country did not seek to escalate with the United States.

And minutes after Zarif’s comment, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a tweet, reassuring the American people that Iran’s attack caused no casualties among U.S. military personnel.

The Iranian missile attack was in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who died in a recent U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Tweets and private messages

And while the world was awaiting a major confrontation between the two longtime foes, those Twitter messages from both sides helped mitigate the tensions and allowed back-channel diplomacy to take its course, experts argue.

"The relatively synchronous transmission of tweets, albeit of limited content, allowed both parties to publicly counteract the more strident messages coming via official news agencies and press releases,” said Randall Rogan, professor of communication at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

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WNU Editor: I personally think the tweets that were sent during that week helped immensely to deescalate the tensions between the two nations, and to look for a face-saving way out. Back-channels take time, a tweet is immediate, and the U.S. - Iran crisis needed to be deescalated immediately.