TEHRAN For those who follow up the news about the escalating hostilities between Iran and Israel, it’s not surprising to see new reports about the doom’s day in different media outlets every day.
Wherever you look, there is a someone saying something about why, when, and how Israel will attack Iran! But few talk about why, when, and how Iran will respond to such attack and what happens next. The story of an Iran Israel all out war is incomplete for a reason: it’s a fairytale being used as a marketing tool to sell actual story that is happening far away from the West Asia.
In fact, even the most optimistic commentators, those who believe in the might of Israel’s iron fist, cannot claim the victory of Israel in a possible war with Iran with the certainty they had less than a decade ago. The military operation which seemed “irrational” at first, is “impossible” now, regardless of the rationality behind it. These are the facts that one can find in the words of military officials inside Israel and within its allies, not news anchors or columnists. And if there is an attack, it’s the military’s word that matters, not that of the media.
That said, the question remains to be if the media knows about the unlikelihood of a military action against Iran, why it keeps pushing for it? Why numerous mainly western outlets keep pumping vast amount of propaganda about an imminent Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities? Is it to scare Iran off? Is it an effort to reroute the current path Iran has undertaken? What’s the catch and what are the pros and cons of praising this narrative?
The short answer is that most of the pieces you see about this future war, especially after the conflict in Ukraine began, is directed towards the audience who don’t even live in Iran or the Occupied Palestine.
The recent article by Bloomberg, published on June 13, is a good example of the media’s power in marketing narratives. The report’s title reads: “Will Israel Attack Iran? What to Know About Netanyahu’s Military Posturing”, and it looks as if it surveys Israel’s most recent strategies in accordance with its deterrence to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in near future.
The article starts with an intensive description of how Israeli PM has held a mock “wartime meeting” of his security cabinet in a “bunker” earlier this month. The very first sentence of the article loads the audience with the presumption that the escalated tensions between the conflicting sides are way beyond the returning point and there are now “wartime meetings in bunkers” going on!
Writers provide multiple reasons throughout the piece to make the idea of an imminent war between Iran and Israel acceptable, including “Iran’s emerging from diplomatic isolation, restoring diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, pushing its allies to fire missile at Israel, and even Israel’s political crisis triggered by Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary”. But none of these reasons stands a chance against the detailed and extensively depicted phenomenon of “Iran’s key military alliance with Russia”. Like all other baseless efforts in media atmosphere to inflict Iran into the conflict in Ukraine, Bloomberg’s article uses the same technique to accomplish the mission: “fire and forget”, where Iran’s involvement in conflict in Ukraine is thrown at the audience as a hyperreality to create confusion and avoid interrogation.
Both Iranian officials and public are quite aware of Iran’s deterrence power in different sections; as are the officials in Israel and skilled Israel watchers in the world. The article even goes on to quote one of these watchers, Dina Esfandiary who is a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, to describe the skepticism around Israel’s ability to carry out such military attack. So why bother putting together this lengthy piece about a war which no one will buy? Actually, there are some buyers out there in the market.
Indeed, this piece is part of the western media agenda to affect public opinion in the West, especially Europe. Although it seems the writers are trying to magnify the political and strategic difficulties of Israel going solo against Iran, what matters most is the fact that “Iran’s military alliance with Russia” is presented in the article as if it’s a globally accepted unquestionable reality for which the writers don’t feel obligated to provide a proof. This narrative is used as a stick hovering above westerners’ heads, convincing them to keep endorsing the carrot: maintaining the fellow of taxpayers’ money and weaponry (which is also provided using taxpayers’ money) to Ukraine. But as the arena stiffens up on all fronts in the battlefield, and as this narrative’s limits are pushed closer and closer to the limits, western media atmosphere comes up with new ideas to keep the carrot fresh and desirable. And that’s by adding more violence and inclusiveness to the stick. This is why we see more emphasis on the U.S.’s pivotal role in the “future war” being added to the previous narratives.
In fact, for the American public opinion, it’s now either fighting Iran in Ukraine’s battlefield by comprehensively and unconditionally supporting Ukraine or starting a direct new war with Iran in another continent to support a critical ally called Israel. And Americans have already obtained a valuable knowledge in a hard way as what does it mean when the U.S. dives into a war to support an ally. Expand this mentality to most of Europe, and you will acquire the bigger picture. And this bigger picture itself, in a broader context, is just one piece of the puzzle that is used by the West to justify unrooting the chance of a peaceful settlement of the dispute.
This technique has unfortunately been successful so far. Despite all the evidence brought up to prove Iran has NOT been engaged in the conflict, and despite the inability of Ukrainian officials and others to back their allegations regarding Iran’s engagement, and despite the fact that multiple Iranian officials in various levels including the Leader have denied Iran’s involvement, this hyperreality keeps taking its toll from the relations between Iran and the West.
The real war between Iran and Israel, which is quite unfair, is not in the future; it has started since a long time ago. The media warfare between the two sides is only one layer of the ongoing quarrel in the region, but it’s definitely the hardest, especially for Iran. There are unfair limitations imposed to Iran within the media ecosystem which deprives the country of the sufficient power to appropriately counter the other side’s offensives. But a fair amount of progress has been made, and the future looks bright in that regard.
Studies show that every person in the world is exposed to approximately 300.000 adds every day! Today, a considerable portion of this number is somehow related to Ukraine. And since the last few months, Iran has been dragged into this advertisement campaign without intending to. By the end of the day, it is the western public opinion who decides which part of this campaign is garbage and should be left outside. Iran has made its position clear multiple times. The judgment is made somewhere else.
And about this whole Israel’s military action against Iran thing, don’t be worried! We are not…
