National Security Notebook | Number 3, April 25, 2026
On the info war with Iran
This week, we at AFPC released an episode of the Disinformation Wars podcast, which I host, on a subject that’s near and dear to my heart. That topic is the information front of the current conflict with Iran, and specifically how the Islamic Republic has managed to shape opinions here in the West. It’s one that’s worth unpacking a bit.
As I’ve outlined elsewhere, information has been a central front of the current Iran war from the start. For those of us who have been briefed by U.S. and/or Israeli military officials, it’s clear that the military component of the war effort was coordinated, methodical… and overwhelmingly successful. But if you judge the conflict solely by what you have seen over the past several weeks on social media, you could easily come away with the impression that Iran in fact roundly defeated the U.S.
That isn’t an accident. The Iranian regime has poured tremendous resources into messaging in recent years, even as it has worked overtime to insulate ordinary Iranians from the world-wide web. (My colleague Calla O’Neil had a terrific study last Fall on this latter effort, which is officially known as the “National Information Network.”)
Those two things are linked, because Iran has been under a more-or-less continuous internet blackout since early January. Iranians haven’t been able to go online reliably and share their stories with the world, and even workarounds like Starlink have run into significant difficulties thanks to jamming capabilities provided to the regime by Russia and China. That has allowed Iran to platform regime officials and reliable propagandists without having to worry about inconvenient stories leaking out of the country. The result is a false narrative that has heavily favored Tehran.
I discussed all this with Andres Ilves, who serves as Senior Advisor and Iran lead for the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. (For full disclosure purposes, you should know that I sit on MBN’s Board of Directors.) Andres is a veteran Iran watcher who previously ran both the BBC Persian Service and RFE/RL’s Persian-language Radio Farda, so his insights are informed by a deep understanding of the Iranian “street.” If you don’t subscribe to his weekly Iran Briefing newsletter, you’re missing out.
As he told me, the Iranian regime is thriving in this constrained informational environment, while America is significantly disadvantaged—because we are not seeing the real contours of what is unfolding within the country. That information deficit, in turn, is impairing American policy and playing directly into the hands of the ayatollahs.
We also delved a bit into what I think are the two most pressing questions relating to internal dynamics in Iran right now. The first is whether the war has altered the way ordinary Iranians think about the regime and their willingness to seek change. The second is how much we really can tell about which opposition forces have managed to capture Iranian “hearts and minds.”
Anyhow, you can listen to the full episode here. And you should.