Iran Declares Victory

How there just might be an upside

Ayatollah Khamenei has emerged from his bunker to claim, “victory over the fake Zionist regime”. The conflict had ended because, “the Zionist regime almost collapsed and was crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic”.

Whatever happens to the nuclear programme from here on, Iran has evidently geared up production of weapons grade copium. In order to bridge the gap between the Supreme Leader’s words and ugly reality, outlandish claims and AI generated images have been produced to show how thoroughly the enemy were whipped.

A fake image of a downed Israeli F-35 was shared by millions of social media users as well as some newspapers

Attempts to salvage scraps of dignity from the bitter gruel of defeat have plenty of historical precedents. “This will not do”, exclaimed the Duke of Wellington, reading the despatch from one of his mauled subordinates in 1811, “write me down a victory”.

Napoleon’s distortions in the government’s official paper became so habitual that his own troops coined the phrase, “to lie like a bulletin”. But the mendacity of centuries ago relied on people at home not being able to see things for themselves. Now, every missile launch or tragedy is swiftly captured by onlookers using their phones.

I think something else has changed recently; the radicalising and fragmentary effects of social media, coupled with deep fakes, are being used to concoct entirely fake versions of events. There are obvious dangers in this, feeding militancy or war fever, deluding people as to the weakness of their nation or party, empowering unscrupulous leaders.

During the recent exchanges of bombs and missiles between Indian and Pakistan, there was so much disinformation that it’s still quite hard to work out who, if anyone, got the upper hand. Video of a pilot shot down in 2019 was recycled, and AI generated images of aircraft wreckage were shared by millions.

The patriotic fervour surrounding these events was such that even experienced journalists admitted rolling fakery into the mainstream news output. We just have to hope that those briefing the national leaders had the courage to share the uncomfortable truth.

When it comes to Iran, the metrics of Israeli military superiority are quite astounding. They destroyed scores of anti-aircraft missile batteries, hundreds of surface to surface missiles, blew up nuclear sites, weapons factories and killed dozens of leadership targets. And all for the loss of two reconnaissance drones.

Israeli F15s operated with impunity over Iran, carrying large fuel loads to extend their endurance

Even I expected the Iranians to be able to draw some crumbs of comfort exhibiting a captured Israeli pilot or two – from a plane succumbing to technical failure in the skies over Iran even if they could not shoot one down. But no, not a single pilot, though Iranian social media accounts used a photo of a Chilean air force flyer at one point to claim they had done so.

And the barrages of missiles fired? They shot more than 520 at the ‘Zionist entity’ of which 94.5% were taken down by interception or experienced technical failure.

AI generated video shared by the Fars news agency exaggerated the damage to Tel Aviv

These Iranian missiles carry big warheads and the ones that got through were so inaccurate that they did a lot of damage to property but did not claim a single soldier, just 28 Israeli civilians. Something over 700 Iranians were killed, mostly at military sites. How different that was from the shocking tallies of families compared to combatants killed in Gaza.

If you’d been doing the Iranian military’s PR, their strike on an oil refinery in Haifa was about the only thing you could legitimately point to as a significant blow against national infrastructure. It had little effect though on Israel’s ability to make war.

The Iranian regime now inhabits a looking glass world in which these few tokens of success must be cited to distract from abject humiliation. Donald Trump, how well he understands disinformation, knew that in order to agree to a ceasefire, Iran had to be allowed the last word, hitting the US base at al-Udeid in Qatar without an American response.

It appears also that they had to be permitted to fire off one last missile against Israel without retaliation. Hence Trump’s annoyance when Israel sent jets up to respond, causing them to turn around without hitting back.

As for the effect of all this bombing on Iran’s nuclear project, I note the CIA’s former chief analyst for the country describing it as, “catastrophic”. But frankly it’s still a bit early to be assessing it, and I’ve always argued that the ultimate security against nuclear breakout can only be gained by a negotiated agreement.

Can I discern any ray of light or optimism in all this? Only that the statements coming from Khamenei and other senior officials suggest that Iran will not change its nuclear policy.

That means the ayatollah’s fatwa against developing the bomb is still apparently in effect, and that Iran will continue to insist on its ‘right to enrich uranium for peaceful uses’. How far they are capable of it, given the damage suffered, we will see. But, another small sign that the old policies will continue is that the International Atomic Energy Authority inspectors remain in the Islamic Republic, even if there is muttering about restricting their access.

If all this is just a clever ruse to disguise a race for the bomb, I expect given the events of the past fortnight, Israeli intelligence will soon detect it. But it may well not be. The pretence that Iran is the victor may well extend to the preservation of the nuclear status quo.