Iran's psy-ops turn increasingly ridiculous and contradictory - but Western media still takes them seriously ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Iran's psy-ops turn increasingly ridiculous and contradictory - but Western media still takes them seriously

In my last post I described how Iran, which has been all but defeated militarily, has been relying more and more on operations to influence Israeli public opinion by exhausting Israelis with smaller but more frequent barrages of missiles, which have become increasingly ineffective as weapons but cause Israelis to run to shelter more often.

This is only one component of Iran's psychological operations, which have become essentially their entire war plan. Much of the psy-ops are aimed not at Israel but at the US and the world, as well as the Iranian people. And the messages are often contradictory depending on the audience.

In Farsi, the IRGC tries to convince Iranians that they are winning the war and that the Muslim world is behind them (Defa Press current headlines):

To Israel, Iranian state media has been sending a message that maybe Iran already has a nuclear weapon that they are just itching to fire at Tel Aviv:

At the UN, Iran emphasizes not its supposedly massive attacks on Israel but its victimhood, saying that this is a defensive war and Iran's attacks have been limited.

For the US, Iran says that it will strike hard if the US enters the war, using advanced technology that it claims has sent cowardly Zionists scurrying to shelter in fear:

On X, Khamenei threatened a massive and devastating attack on Israel - on the first day of the war.

The message hasn't changed. At all.

A more sophisticated message was sent to Reuters, using anonymous Iranian insiders to warn that Khamenei is increasingly unstable and might do something unpredictable and "extremely dangerous" if the war continues:

Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cuts an increasingly lonely figure.

Khamenei has seen his main military and security advisers killed by Israeli airstrikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.

One of those sources, who regularly attends meetings with Khamenei, described the risk of miscalculation to Iran on issues of defense and internal stability as “extremely dangerous.”

This source is obviously loyal to Khamenei- he wouldn't be in his inner circle if he wasn't - which means that this message of Khamenei's supposed instability and unpredictability is approved by Iran's Supreme Leader himself. He is adapting Trump's "I'm crazy, so you better not mess with me" tactic.

Notice that the specific nature of the threat is left unsaid, to use Western imagination as the weapon itself. But what can Khamenei do that he hasn't tried already, when his armed forces have lost and are reduced to crowing over shooting down a single drone while IAF planes have unchallenged dominance over the skies of Iran?

Last night Iran promised a huge attack on Israel. There was no damage from a couple of dozen missiles. The threats are becoming increasingly desperate and geared towards making the war end, keeping the regime in power and saving at least parts of its nuclear program.

And if that is what this genocidal regime wants, it is the exact opposite of what must happen.