Key Takeaways:

Old tactic, new battlefield: Iran-linked narratives follow a long tradition of wartime propaganda – but social media makes them faster, broader, and harder to detect.
False victories, real impact: Claims of Israeli collapse, Iranian dominance, and U.S. manipulation are designed to distort reality and shape global perception.
Credibility camouflage: Unlike past propaganda, today’s misinformation blends into legitimate content – amplified by algorithms, influencers, and anonymous networks.

Throughout the current U.S.-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a coordinated campaign of misinformation has flooded social media. Its goal is clear: to demoralize Israelis and Americans while convincing global audiences that Iran is winning and its adversaries are faltering.

This misinformation campaign has taken various forms over the past few weeks of war, mainly focusing on the following key claims:

Iran is winning the war and inflicting devastating damage on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities
Israeli leaders, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have been killed and the country is descending into chaos
Iran has yet to deploy its full military capabilities and holds a technological advantage
The U.S. was dragged into the war by Israel, with American soldiers dying for Israeli interests
Iran posed no real threat to the U.S., making the war unnecessary

 

While the scale may feel unprecedented, the strategy is not new. Throughout the 20th century, enemies of Western forces used the latest means of communication in an effort to demoralize the troops and spread triumphalist propaganda about imaginary victories.

Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw & Baghdad Bob: A History of Wartime Propaganda

In the First World War, German forces dropped leaflets addressed to African-American service members that were meant to demoralize the troops and encourage desertions from the American forces. These leaflets focused on racism in the ranks of the U.S. military as a source of discontent and despondency.

With the rise of radio in the 1920s, propaganda became more sophisticated.

During World War Two, in the European theater, several English-speaking propagandists broadcast to the Allies on behalf of Nazi Germany.

“Axis Sally” was the name given to an American-born radio personality who, through several radio shows aimed at U.S. service members, attempted to demoralize them by making them feel homesick, making claims about the fidelity of their wives and girlfriends, and exaggerating the horrors that awaited them on the battlefield.

For the British audience, the Germans had “Lord Haw Haw,” an alias for a variety of English-speaking radio hosts. According to the BBC, Lord Haw Haw’s modus operandi was “to entertain while undermining his British audience’s morale by spreading doubt through semi-plausible rumours, exaggeration and ridicule” and to “mock people’s fears” about German bombardments.

In the Pacific theater, the Japanese used “Tokyo Rose” to demoralize American troops. Similar to Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose broadcast in English to American troops, aiming to make them feel homesick and concerned about the faithfulness of their partners back home.

During the Korean War, “Seoul City Sue” picked up the mantle of radio propaganda meant to demoralize with broadcasts that included making American troops feel homesick, reading the names of killed and captured soldiers, criticizing American actions in the war, threatening newly-arrived troops, and ridiculing African-American soldiers for fighting for a country that was still segregated back home.

During the Vietnam War, “Hanoi Hannah“‘s broadcasts were aimed at American troops and focused on the unjustness of the war, questioned the loyalty of the soldiers’ wives and girlfriends, and encouraged the desertion of the GIs.

During the First Gulf War, Iraqi radio began broadcasting to American forces, “alleging immoral Gulf emirs had ‘enjoyed’ the company of U.S. women” and mentioning “faraway loved ones, desert heat, quicksand, rising taxes in the United States, war injuries and U.S. soldiers missing in action in Vietnam.”

The flip side of demoralization by the wartime propaganda machine is triumphalist statements based on imaginary victories.

For example, during the Six-Day War, Egyptian radio proclaimed that Israeli fighter planes were being shot out of the sky and that Egyptian forces were massing on Tel Aviv. In reality, Israel had destroyed most of the Egyptian Air Force in the war’s opening act.

Similarly, during the Second Gulf War, Saddam Hussein’s spokesman and Minister of Media and Foreign Affairs, dubbed “Baghdad Bob” or “Comical Ali,” kept on claiming to international audiences before the war that any invasion of Iraq would be met with disaster and insisted Iraqi forces were winning even as U.S. troops entered Baghdad.

Wartime Misinformation & Social Media

While there are definitely similarities between the wartime misinformation and propaganda of the past century and this current war, this new campaign that has taken off on social media can be viewed as more dangerous than the radio broadcasts of Tokyo Rose or the rantings of Baghdad Bob.

These broadcasts had limited, if any, impact in demoralizing soldiers or the home front with their obvious propaganda.

For example, a study undertaken in Britain during the time that Lord Haw-Haw was broadcasting from Germany found that most listeners tuned in because he was seen as entertaining (“his version of the news is so fantastic that it is funny”) or because he had a nice way of speaking.

Similarly, with Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and Hanoi Hannah, most soldiers tuned in because they played the latest music and generally ignored the demoralizing propaganda that came along with the modern tunes.

And, in the age of the internet, Baghdad Bob was seen as more of a laughingstock than as a serious spokesperson.

Today’s misinformation is far more difficult to identify.

Related Reading: Tel Aviv Destroyed: Viral Video Proves the Dangers of AI During Israel-Iran War

It was clear to those tuning in to Lord Haw-Haw or Seoul City Sue that they were listening to propaganda.

On social media, viral posts claiming that Tel Aviv is in ruins or that Israel’s leadership has been eliminated can appear indistinguishable from legitimate reporting. High follower counts, polished visuals, and algorithmic amplification give propaganda a veneer of credibility.

Similarly, when an expert on Tucker Carlson’s podcast discusses how this war is all Israel’s fault, anyone with a limited understanding of the region would view this as an objective fact and not calculated misinformation.

Some accounts may be linked to Iranian influence operations. Others are driven by ideology, anti-Israel or anti-American sentiment, or simple profit through engagement and outrage.

While earlier mass-produced propaganda was easily identifiable and could just as easily be dismissed as irrelevant, the current wave of misinformation and propaganda online is much harder to identify and counteract.

As warfare has evolved from trenches to drones and hypersonic missiles, the battle for public perception has evolved as well — from leaflets and radio broadcasts to artificial intelligence, viral content, and global digital platforms.

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