Iran’s “Unity” Narrative Under Fire | Inside Tehran’s New Propaganda Machine | Iran U.S. News | N18G

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[00:00:01]In Tehran's busy Enghelab Square, a large billboard dwarfs vehicles passing by. It depicts a US plane and a ship stuck in a net in the Strait of Hormuz and reads, "The entire Persian Gulf is our hunting ground."

[00:00:15]It's just one of the propaganda posters boasting of national unity and victory over the United States on display in Iran's capital. The displays come just months after Iran's deadly crackdown on mass protests and as war worsens the economic pain for Iranians.

[00:00:32]But unlike the revolutionary religious messages of the past, today's propaganda emphasizes nationalist themes aimed beyond a hardline support base.

[00:00:43]Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group's Iran Project Director, says it's unclear if the propaganda will have much influence. All that the regime can achieve is is marginal because the majority of the people are disillusioned with the system as a whole regardless of who's in charge and what kind of messaging they deploy.

[00:01:08]In in general, they want to see the back of this regime and no amount of propaganda is going to change their opinion.

[00:01:18]But there are on the margins some fence-sitters and that for the regime is important. Iran's success in closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas flows, has featured prominently in messaging abroad and at home. This large billboard shows a cloth stapled across Trump's face in the distinctive shape of the strait. It reads, "At the breaking point." The propaganda around the Strait of Hormuz has dual utility. One is to signal to to the West and the to the regional countries that a return to status quo ante is is simply not on the cards. Iranian authorities are also staging military-themed mass weddings and public gun training sessions in mosques to boost a spirit of national resistance. The direction of travel when it gets to the narrative that the regime is putting out there is actually indicative of the transformation that the regime is undergoing.

[00:02:19]It is moving from a geographic system into a military one.

[00:02:26]It is increasingly seeing people in charge who are of a younger generation, of a generation that has basically been disillusioned with some of the ideology of the early years.

[00:02:41]But the economy in Iran, already faltering before the war, risks further breakdown and could lead to further internal unrest.