Narratives of the War against Iran
With the help of the intelligence services’ impressive capabilities, the U.S. military has acted with great precision and overwhelming force in attacking targets in Iran. At the same time, the Trump administration appears incompetent both in its decision-making and, above all, in its communication to the outside world.
The message from Washington seems remarkably unclear, even though Donald Trump was relatively explicit about several motives and goals in his speech on February 28, the same day Israel and the United States bombed Iran. However, on social media and in response to journalists’ questions, Trump and his administration subsequently provided several different explanations for the attacks, which has created a chaotic image of the situation in the media. Some statements highlight Iran’s long-term nuclear program. Others emphasize the protection of Israel against an acute military threat. Still others speak of regime change in Iran, understood as the liberation of the Iranian people from the oppression of the Shiite clergy. While critics see this fragmented messaging as an expression of incompetence, Trump’s supporters interpret it as tactical versatility or even “4D chess.”
When the American administration fails to control the narrative, a vacuum arises, which has been filled by a multiplicity of alternative narratives. In the absence of a “grand narrative,” smaller stories—such as the bombing of a girls’ school in the Iranian city of Minab—come to define the perception of the March 28 attack. That the Trump administration lacks control of the situation is in itself a narrative that has spread following the bombings, as has the narrative that Trump is creating meaningless chaos and that he is repeating George W. Bush’s mistakes in Iraq—despite promises to the contrary.
Wars rarely have a single cause. Decisions regarding military operations of this magnitude are seldom made based on a single motive. In practice, several different factors must coincide and reinforce each other. For the U.S., this often means that three types of conditions are met simultaneously: first, a moral or political legitimacy that can be accepted by large groups in the U.S. and among allies; second, a strategic or geopolitical rationality; and third, expectations of economic benefit or at least sustainability. Therefore, the stories that attempt to explain war are always simplifications—they reduce a complex interaction of moral, strategic, and economic factors to one or a few primary causes. Each narrative highlights one factor and turns it into the main explanation. Currently, several such narratives are circulating regarding the war against Iran. In a military action, motives and justifications do not need to coincide, but it is typically the task of the American president to communicate clear justifications and goals that legitimize military intervention
One narrative encountered in American media is geopolitical. Here, the attacks are interpreted primarily as part of the global power struggle between the U.S. and China. Iran is a strategic partner to China. By weakening Iran, the U.S. can indirectly weaken a vital element in China’s geopolitical network. From this perspective, the conflict appears as part of a larger global rivalry between different political systems, and Trump is even viewed here as a strategic master of geopolitics.
Another narrative interprets American involvement as part of the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom against the rule of the mullahs. Trump has, in fact, expressed support for anti-regime protests on several occasions.
Perhaps the most established narrative concerns Iran’s nuclear program. Here, the attacks are presented as an attempt to halt the development of Iranian nuclear weapons before it is too late. This narrative has long been central to both American and Israeli security policy, and to the extent that it dominates, the Trump administration may have succeeded in getting its message across after all.
In more critical versions of the conflict, the war is unfortunately presented as a result of Israeli influence over American decisions. Here, the U.S. is described as being dragged into the conflict primarily to defend Israel. In more radical versions of this narrative, there is also talk of powerful Jewish and Zionist lobby groups in Washington.
The Iranian state, meanwhile, spreads its own narrative. Here, the conflict is presented as an attack by Western imperialism against international law and a sovereign nation. In this story, Iran appears as a state defending its sovereignty against external, illegitimate aggression. Religious and even apocalyptic motifs regarding the return of the Twelfth Imam or Shiite martyrdom occasionally occur, but the emphasis is often placed on national independence and resistance, at least in outward communication.
Apocalyptic narratives can also be found in the U.S. Certain evangelical Christians interpret conflicts in the Middle East in light of biblical prophecies regarding the return of Jesus and the role of the State of Israel in the end times. This group constitutes a significant part of the Republican voting base and has long influenced American policy in the Middle East
Specifically in the Swedish context, another narrative related to the aforementioned apocalyptic or eschatologically motivated narrative has gained traction. Professor of Church History Joel Halldorf has argued that the U.S.’s actions can best be understood through the concept of apocalyptic Zionism. He presented this in an interview on Swedish TV the week after the bombings in Iran, which quickly sparked a lively debate and a Swedish “battle of narratives.” A few days earlier, he had published a text which he concluded with the claim “Left in the corridors of power, there is only one ideology that can explain Trump’s actions in Iran: apocalyptic Zionism.” Here we have a narrative where American war policy is portrayed as driven by religious fanaticism or fundamentalism. Just like other narratives, it isolates a single possible contributing factor and makes it the primary explanation.
The American political scene does not harbor a single dominant story about Iran. Nor does a single narrative about the military conflict dominate within the Republican Party or even within the MAGA movement. Here, one finds both isolationist nationalists who oppose American involvement in military conflicts and evangelical Christians who are always prepared to defend Israel. Their narratives are mutually incompatible. Furthermore, there are Republicans who think primarily in terms of the rivalry with China.
On the American left, narratives of “white” imperialism and Western dominance dominate instead. This is a narrative that resonates among supporters of BLM and is backed not only by Iran but also by Russia and China.
This diversity of narratives creates a particularly vulnerable information environment. When political leaders themselves do not control the story of a conflict, a narrative vacuum arises. Such a void can easily be exploited by other actors.
For several years, both China and Russia have worked systematically with information influence in the West, and not least in the U.S. With the help of social media and increasingly artificial intelligence—which feeds AI language models—they have reinforced existing contradictory stories and thereby deepened political polarizations. The aim is to make reality more uncertain and create doubt, but also to divide and thereby weaken the West. Western self-criticism (which is fundamentally healthy for a democracy) and oikophobia are hijacked and reshaped by authoritarian states to destabilize the recipient.
The conflict surrounding Iran demonstrates something more general about the geopolitics of our time. Military operations are not decided solely by weapon systems, intelligence, and strategic decisions. They are also shaped by strategic narratives—by how people interpret what is happening, why it is happening, and what might happen next.
When narratives fracture, the U.S.’s ability to fulfill the three basic conditions for war is directly undermined. Russian and Chinese AI-supported information influence that supports the narrative of Western imperialism strikes directly at moral legitimacy. When political leaders fail to formulate a coherent story about their own actions, others will quickly do so in their place.
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