After the attack on Iran, Tehran intensified its propaganda activities. According to Witold Repetowicz from the Academy of War Arts, Iran's narratives will emphasize determination, mobilize society and minimize losses, and use the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to fuel Shiite protests.
On Sunday, representatives of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reported that the USS Abraham Lincoln – one of two US aircraft carriers involved in operations in the Persian Gulf – was allegedly hit by four ballistic missiles. Artificial intelligence-generated videos showing the burning unit and animated diagrams showing the course of the alleged attack appeared on social media platforms. On the same day, the Pentagon denied these reports. On the night from Sunday to Monday, CNN published unverified footage from the Iranian Fars news agency, which, in a propaganda way, shows tunnels full of drones and container rocket launchers allegedly waiting to be launched. Similar recordings flood the Internet, often in the form of unverified videos and fake news.
Iranian state media has released footage purporting to show scores of attack drones stockpiled in an underground bunker.
Video released by Fars News Agency, a news service that is closely linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shows rows of drones mounted on rocket… pic.twitter.com/70vPGa7ynX
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As Witold Repetowicz, an expert on the Middle East from the Academy of War Arts, emphasized in an interview with PAP, this type of information strategy is a typical phenomenon in war conditions. At the same time, the Islamic Republic's determination to defend its existence is not a propaganda declaration, but a fact, and current evidence does not indicate any weakening in the near future.
Due to the US-Israeli strike on Iran that has been ongoing since Saturday, Iranian propaganda messages, on the one hand, manifest the country's and society's determination to defend itselfand on the other hand, they publicize reports about civilian losses, while minimizing information about military losses.
As a result of the attack carried out on the government complex in Tehran on Saturday, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Pakpur, and security adviser Ali Shamkhani were killed. Iranian media initially did not disclose this information, but on Sunday Iranian state television made it official.
According to Witold Repetowicz, Iran is prepared for losses resulting from the American-Israeli attack, which is not part of propaganda. However, as he emphasized, the death of Ayatollah Khamenei is and will be used by Iranian propaganda, primarily by emphasizing the incompatibility of the attack on the leader with international law and presenting it in the context of martyrdom. This is intended to mobilize Shiite communities around the world to protest and retaliate.
– This is already happening. We have an attack on the US embassy in Iraq, actions in Bahrain and several other places – said the PAP interlocutor.
Since – according to the expert – the unity of the nation in the face of the American-Israeli attack is questionable, the Iranian authorities are trying to consolidate society around a narrative emphasizing civilian losses, e.g. in the context of the victims of the bombing of a girls' school in Minab, where up to 150 people could have died.
Repetowicz noted that there are no reliable polls regarding real support for the Iranian authorities. – It's not that the authorities have 99 percent against them. society, but it is not the case that 99 percent supports them. Even if 60 percent contests the Islamic republic, that still leaves 20-30 percent. a support base that can be mobilized spontaneously and non-spontaneously – said the expert.
He pointed out that, unlike propaganda in other regions of the world, where social media platforms are an important medium, in the case of Iran, traditional state “media”, television, as well as “mosques and the street” dominate.
Tehran – as the expert mentioned – also uses traditional narratives that have been circulated for a long time, such as the one that its nuclear program is carried out solely for peaceful purposes.
Repetowicz pointed out that in the context of the war in the Middle East, Iran's narrative must be separated from that of other actors such as Russia.
– There is no unity of goals here. For the Islamic Republic, the goal is to survive, while Russia is interested in escalation and will cynically use this situation to attack the US, without any willingness to help Iran, the expert emphasized.
When asked whether Tehran's propaganda messages – consciously or not – are picked up by some groups in the West, Repetowicz said that it basically applies only to the pro-Russian sphere. In it, Khamenei and other Iranian leaders are idealized, while the American-Israeli side is demonized.
– This is natural and at the same time somewhat paradoxical, because Russia has no intention of providing real support to Iran, and yet it launches its propaganda machine without explaining why it does not provide Iran with, for example, S-400 anti-aircraft systems or Su-35 planes – said Repetowicz. He added that in these reports the American-Israeli duo is portrayed as pure evil, although Russian-Israeli relations are not terrible at all, which is one of the reasons for the failure to provide Iran with real military aid.
According to PAP's interlocutor, apart from the pro-Russian information environment, the West does not generally follow the Iranian narrative. On the contrary, there is a widespread belief that after the first strike, the regime will have no opportunity to respond and will collapse. – These are illusions. Similarly, it is an illusion to believe that everything will end with the return of Reza Pahlavi (the son of the last shah of Iran, who lives in the USA and who announced democratic changes in this country in 1979 – PAP) to Tehran – said the expert.
In his opinion, such a belief is harmful and increases the risk of success of Russian narratives. – There is an inflation of expectations regarding what will be achieved in this war. Because its strategic goals have not been defined. However, the goal of the Islamic Republic is clear – it is survival. So no matter how it is weakened, if it survives, it will be presented in propaganda as bringing the “Great Satan to his knees” – summed up Witold Repetowicz.
On Saturday, Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran, which killed, among others, the country's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. On the night from Sunday to Monday, the Israeli armed forces announced that they had launched strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to rocket fire from the Iran-backed organization. (PAP)
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