In late December and early January, as Iranians took to the streets to protest the country’s economic malaise, the Islamic Republic quietly began seeding onto social media its own narrative of events, in preparation for a brutal crackdown. The uprising wasn’t organic or homegrown, according to posts by state-backed media accounts, but the shadowy work of the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s vaunted Mossad spy agency. “The enemies, particularly the United States and Israeli regime, are focused on fueling insecurity in Iran by making use of the tools of soft warfare,” state-controlled Fars News Agency proclaimed on January 5, citing the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.
In the days that followed, particularly January 8 and 9, Iran’s security forces mowed down thousands of ordinary Iranians in an operation that is widely seen as the bloodiest in the country’s modern history. Twinned with this crackdown has been a sophisticated, state-backed information offensive.
For the Islamic Republic to rely on claims of U.S. and Israeli involvement to justify its repression isn’t new. The difference between this campaign and the Iranian regime’s frequent efforts to smear dissidents and protesters as foreign agents is that the push launched by the regime this time was not designed only, or even mainly, for domestic consumption. It was directed just as much at ideological allies and supporters abroad, inserting the Islamic Republic’s propaganda into global political discussions and seeking to whitewash the massacre of Iranian protesters.
