Soup 385, March 2, 2026
| Soup | 385 |
|---|---|
| Permalink | Permalink |
| Date | 2026-03-02 |
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| Tweets | 20 |
| Soup type | Basiji |
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Basiji war propaganda
In this second (and possibly last) Basiji Soup, we’ll explore how the Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared for a conflict with the US and Israel. We won’t cover the military aspects, but another kind of war — information warfare.
In the 1st Basiji Soup, we souped the Islamic Republic, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, its support of terrorism including Russia’s, its (one-sided?) relationship with Putin, and the mass protests against it that started two months ago:
Basiji Soup
The Internet blackout has been crucial in allowing the regime to cover up its massacre of the protesters and especially the scope of it, making it difficult to assess the number of victims. They went to great lengths to jam Starlink, after having made its use illegal.
There are basically two ways now to get through the countrywide Internet blackout: Starlink, heavily jammed but usually working, and a state-controlled whitelist. Only regime officials and a limited number of businessmen get the whitelist Internet access.
There are therefore two kinds of information that leave the country: testimonies from the protesters, and the regime’s Basiji propaganda. As both are limited, the media outside the country play a crucial role. The regime has few direct voices but many allies abroad.
Before the 1979 revolution, besides liberals and nationalists, which never supported the Islamic Republic, there were three main groups fighting against the Shah: Islamists, communists, and Islamist communists. Moscow was involved as well, as usual:
tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK, Islamist communists), supported Ayatollah Khomeini initially but became hostile to him soon. During the Iran-Iraq war, they sided with Iraq, and were seen as traitors both by the regime and by many Iranians. They fled Iran…
… but found rich benefactors in the West, and control many “Iranian opposition media”. Like a big part of the “Russian liberal opposition”, they blame the leader of the regime, while criticizing more the opposition groups actually dangerous to it.
They don’t say much about @PahlaviReza except criticizing his followers, whereas other media like the satellite TV station @IranIntl_En have recognized that many Iranians both at home and abroad have united around him. There are also open monarchists like @TousiTVOfficial .
The biggest protests in January were called by Reza Pahlavi, and 250,000 supported him in Munich during the Security Conference on February 14. His team’s latest achievement is a messenger app designed to work even during the Internet blackouts.
Pahlavi’s team also has a detailed transition plan including a referendum on the form of government and free elections, following the expected fall of the regime weakened by US attacks, while urging the US to try to minimize civilian casualties.
Whether the US and allies will do their best to limit civilian casualties or not, there could be a lot of reports of “American missiles killing civilians” either way. Information about a plan of the Iranian regime for such a propaganda operation leaked a month ago already.
The plan involves two steps:
1. Shelling civilians with missiles and drones.
2. Taking photos and filming the “consequences of the American bombing”. If there aren’t enough bodies, a few more will be added from the morgue full of corpses of killed protesters.
1. Shelling civilians with missiles and drones.
2. Taking photos and filming the “consequences of the American bombing”. If there aren’t enough bodies, a few more will be added from the morgue full of corpses of killed protesters.
Perhaps they’ll even use vatniks like Jackson Hinkle (a big fan of all dictators, including the late Ayatollah) for that, as he built his whole following on posting photos of destructions by Assad (whom he supports) and blaming them on Israel. Or maybe Sulaiman Ahmed?
This form of “false flag” is not really new. Another classic, often also used by Iran’s proxy terrorists, is the use of human shields, especially children, such as having military bases near schools or military equipment placed directly in schools.
Indeed, among its many atrocities, the Islamic regime has a history of getting children killed by engaging them in conflict, a war crime. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), tens of thousands of Iranian children were sent to the front to die in assaults or minefields.
Iran has been basically at war with the US ever since the attack and hostage-taking on the US embassy, an act of war. While friendly with Israel during the Iran-Iraq war, they have since been self-destructively obsessed with them, from terrorist proxies to nuclear threats.
We don’t know yet how well, how far the US intervention will go. Hopefully they’ll avoid civilian casualties, raise local support and bring elections, not just Trump’s interests. It also remains to be seen how far he can go against his dear Putin.
Iran-Russia
But it’s already clear that a brutal dictator has been eliminated, a key Putin ally weakened. We can expect less terrorism and less Basiji disinformation as a result. And hopefully an end of the terrorist regime and of its Shahed drones, including those licensed to Russia.
Enjoyed this soup? Brandolini’s law: the amount of energy needed to refute vatnik, wumao and basiji propaganda is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Fact-based research takes time and effort. Please support our work:
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Topics
Links, documents, resources
- Iran Grooms Child Soldiers Across the Country
- People celebrate in the streets after announcement of Khamenei’s death
- Iran’s Internet Came Back – But Not for Everyone
- The Russians Did It: Kremlin Documents Reveal the Soviet Union Is to Blame for Today’s Middle East Mess
- Remembering a CIA Coup in Iran That Never Was
- Rise Iran! Campaign
- Voice of America is covering Iran’s protests, but not its best-known dissident
- Voice of America’s Persian service blacks out Iran’s exiled crown prince
- False and outdated videos circulated online after the Iran strikes.
- Morgue near Tehran overwhelmed by bodies amid protest crackdown