The Naked Hegemon: US Fails to Project Power in Iran | T. Karat & R. Rupp

## Intro: Cognitive Warfare & Media Manipulation What emerges from the conversation is a clear contention: modern conflict is as much about shaping minds as it is about sinking ships. The exchange places cognitive warfare and a relentless media drumbeat at the center of the current confrontation with Iran, arguing that narratives and perceptions are being engineered to create consent for coercion. This is not framed as a novel hobby for governments; rather, it is depicted as the main theater of operations in which Western powers, especially the United States and its partners, hope to secure outcomes without committing to the catastrophic costs of open war. The discussion insists that this media offensive serves multiple audiences simultaneously: domestic constituencies in Western capitals, allied governments in Europe and the Middle East, dissident groups within Iran, and global publics who might be persuaded that regime change is a moral imperative. The strategic aim, as portrayed, is to compress political space around Iran by normalizing violent options and delegitimizing the target regime. In doing so, cognitive tactics blur the line between information, persuasion, and military preparation. Underlying this thesis is a second, quieter claim: when hard-power options are constrained or undesirable, the pressure to produce effects by other means intensifies. The conversation links repetitive alarmist headlines, exaggerated casualty claims, and selective reporting to an effort to manufacture a crisis environment that is conducive to coercive diplomacy — or worse, military escalation. The contention is that once information ecosystems have been weaponized, it becomes easier to push a polity toward risky choices that would otherwise meet greater resistance. Yet the speakers also underscore a paradox. Sophisticated cognitive operations depend on credibility, and credibility erodes when propaganda is too obvious or when policy actors miscalculate. The conversation therefore treats cognitive warfare not as invincible, but as a fraught instrument of statecraft: powerful in shaping perceptions, but vulnerable to real-world friction and misreadings of the opponent’s resolve. Finally, the exchange warns that the most dangerous outcome is not simply a failure of intelligence or of military logistics, but a misalignment between what societies are being led to expect and what the actual balance of power permits. If publics are primed to believe that a decisive, clean strike can topple a regime, they will be astonished — and possibly furious — when the messy realities of target resilience and asymmetric retaliation unfold. ## Analyzing the Media Drumbeat for War The conversation systematically dissects how the Western media environment has been marshaled to make confrontation seem inevitable and even righteous. Participants describe a feedback loop in which op-eds, television segments, and social-media amplification reinforce one another, producing a sense of urgency that policymakers can cite as pressure to act. This is not presented as a spontaneous media moment but as a coordinated and sustained information campaign with tactical objectives. A central element of the critique is the selective elevation of narratives that favor military options: casualty figures that go unverified; imagery that simplifies a complex political landscape into binaries of oppressors and liberators; and repetitive motifs that equate presence with resolve. The conversation highlights the way casualty claims, whether inflated or ambiguous, become focal points for outrage and calls for intervention. When statistical assertions are treated as indisputable facts, they function as moral currency that can be spent to justify external interference. The exchange also notes the instrumental use of proxy voices and exiled groups to lend legitimacy to calls for regime change. When dissident organizations are showcased without scrutiny of their aims or methods, media coverage can facilitate foreign intervention by creating the impression of a spontaneous, indigenous uprising. The speakers warn that this kind of amplification distorts on-the-ground realities and risks transforming protesters into instruments of external strategy. A further analytical strand in the conversation concerns timing and theatricality. Media campaigns often coincide with visible military mobilizations, creating a dramatic tableau: carrier strike groups at sea, bases being readied, and pundits declaring a turning point. This theatricality, the discussion suggests, is designed to produce a political arithmetic in which the show of force becomes an argument in itself, compelling rivals to accede rather than risk escalation. But the conversation’s critique is not merely pessimistic about intent. It also observes that the drumbeat sometimes overreaches, producing countervailing effects. Audiences exposed to constant alarm can become either desensitized or suspicious; allies may resist being drawn into a narrative that lacks credible military follow-through; and adversaries may interpret bluster as a sign of weakness. In short, the media machinery can be double-edged: effective at priming publics, yet liable to create strategic illusions. ## Is the US Baiting Iran to Attack First? A provocative strand of the discussion centers on the accusation that the U.S. posture may be intentionally provocative—calculated to elicit a first strike by Iran that would, in turn, provide a casus belli for a large-scale retaliation. The conversation situates this tactic within a broader historical pattern: using pressure, sanctions, and show-of-force deployments to prod an adversary into an escalation that can be framed as defensive retribution. Participants emphasize that such baiting is not necessarily an explicit public doctrine but can arise from the interplay of hawkish rhetoric, forward deployments, and covert support for anti-regime actors. The result, the exchange contends, is a hazardous strategic calculus: the antagonized party faces an agonizing choice between absorbing provocations, which undermine sovereignty and deterrence, or striking first and accepting the label of aggressor. The discussion also raises the problem of asymmetric consequences. If a small-scale Iranian response—say, to a naval incursion—was portrayed as an unprovoked attack on a high-value asset like a carrier, the political optics in the United States and allied capitals could favor a disproportionate military response. This dynamic creates a trap: the bait works not because the provoker is overwhelmingly powerful but because norms and narratives are structured to reward the provoker’s framing. Yet the conversation does not paint this as a one-sided scheme. It also acknowledges plausible counter-arguments: that visible military deployments aim to deter rather than provoke, or that signaling is intended to reassure allies. What the exchange insists upon, however, is that intent matters less than effect. Whether by design or accident, moves that raise the temperature of confrontation increase the risk of miscalculation and unintended escalation. Ultimately, the dialogue stresses prudence. Baiting strategies may produce short-term political gains, but they carry the long-term risk of transforming a contained standoff into a regional conflagration — with consequences that would ripple across global trade, energy markets, and diplomatic alignments. ## Psychological Targeting & Digital Warfare The conversation turns next to digital-era tools of influence: data-driven psychological targeting, algorithmic amplification, and micro-targeted propaganda. What emerges is a picture of unprecedented granularity in persuasion. Modern campaigns, the exchange argues, are able to craft messages tailored to individual psychological profiles, exploiting social-media footprints to deliver different narratives to different subgroups. This technological advantage is d

The Naked Hegemon: US Fails to Project Power in Iran | T. Karat & R. Rupp The onslaught against Iran is not over. And yes, the USA might be using a siege strategy to crack Iran in the end through its economy and civil society. However, the projection of brute force power politics (the way the US used to be able to simply march into Iraq and have its leader hanged) are not working anymore. The US sent its warships to Iran before, once in 2012 and before that in 2007. And both times, the "Armada" was larger than this time. My guest, Rainer Rupp makes the point that this third military attempt is the smallest yet, at a time when Iran is stronger than in the past. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro: Cognitive Warfare & Media Manipulation 00:01:14 US Military Buildup vs. Actual Readiness 00:09:22 Analyzing the Media Drumbeat for War 00:10:07 The "Venezuela Syndrome" & US Strategy 00:16:00 Is the US Baiting Iran to Attack First? 00:18:14 Manufacturing Consent for Regime Change 00:25:07 Psychological Targeting & Digital Warfare 00:27:32 Sun Tzu, Naval Vulnerabilities, & Geopolitics 00:30:58 The Importance of Understanding the Enemy 00:33:33 Conclusion & Outro #Pascal Right now, we’re being joined by our second guest today, our German colleague. I’ll add him to the stage now—Rainer Rupp, who’s joining us from Germany. Just very briefly, Rainer used to work for NATO back in the ’70s, from 1977 until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Actually, even a bit longer— yeah, even a bit longer. He forwarded intelligence to East Germany, so he was a living and working spy who later spent seven years in prison for his espionage. Rainer, welcome to our livestream. #Rainer Rupp Glad to be here. Hello. #Pascal Hello. And the other guest here is Thomas Karat. We just discussed one of his articles, and he made the point that not only are we being manipulated by the mainstream media with massive floods of pro-war propaganda, but that NATO’s cognitive warfare is also going on right now to kind of massage in the idea of a war with Iran. Do you agree with that? #Rainer Rupp Yes, I fully agree with that, but it’s nothing new in the case of Iran. That goes back as far as I can remember. I mean, we’ve already seen this kind of, what we call, threatening buildup of aircraft -- 1 of 9 -- carrier strike groups, and so on, in order to force negotiations. But they don’t want negotiations anymore—they want regime change. I always compare it to putting a gun to somebody’s head and saying, “I only want to talk to you.” The more interesting thing about this is that each time, the civilians—I mean, the politicians—in the United States push the military to build up these horrible, threatening positions with two aircraft carrier battle groups, and in the surrounding nations they concentrate bombers and aircraft to increase their capability to strike Iran. And that was 2007, and in 2012, under Obama, we had three aircraft carrier strike groups confronting Iran, plus all the aircraft on the surrounding air bases, and so on. And each time the American military said, “No, no, that’s enough. We don’t want to fight.” And they don’t want to fight for good reasons. In fact, in 2012, there was a unique situation—it had never happened before. There were the four, I mean, in the United States you have four—what’s the English word— *Waffengattungen*, I mean, branches of the Armed Forces: the Army, the Navy... You have the Air Force and, as a separate armed service, the Marines. Now, each of these armed services has a chief of staff. And out of those four chiefs of staff, three actually went public and said, “We don’t want to fight Iran. That’s too dangerous.” The only one who was for it was, of course, the Air Force. Quite clearly, the Americans have that saying: the Air Force doesn’t make widows and orphans. I mean, they’ve never had that many casualties in the Air Force—never comparable, for instance, with the Navy, the Marines, or the Army. They get into the aircraft, drop a few bombs, and by four o’clock they’re back, having a gin and tonic in the officers’ mess. So that’s the attitude of the brave American pilots. In each case, it didn’t come to a fight. Now, the point I’m trying to make is this: today, Trump’s super‑duper, wonderful, marvelous armada is sailing threateningly toward Iran. And it’s less strong than ever—less than in the times before—at a moment when Iran is stronger than ever. The only dangerous thing about the whole situation is that you can’t calculate, or you can’t expect, rational behavior from Trump, because he’s becoming increasingly irrational. What we do know about Trump—and I’ve been following him from the beginning, not just this turnaround—is that he doesn’t want to get into a long war. The problem is, the Iranians have said, “If you hit us again, we’re going to go all in.” And as far as I know—and I also heard it said, though I can’t vouch for it—Mearsheimer said just recently that when Netanyahu came to the United States the other day, he didn’t come to encourage Trump to start another war against Iran, but quite the opposite, because the Israelis aren’t ready. Now, in preparing for this talk, I was digging out a Congressional Research Service report from my archive, just to point out what I mean. You know what the THAADs are—the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors—which are supposed to be super‑duper, even better than the Patriot, because the Patriot is a dud anyway. And this is from the Congressional Research Service; it’s a congressional document. It says THAAD interceptors accounted for almost half of all U.S. and Israeli interceptors used to protect Israel against Iranian medium‑range ballistic missiles. The study estimated that 92 THAAD -- 2 of 9 -- interceptors were used during the conflict, out of an overall U.S. supply of about 632 interceptors. So that’s roughly 15%. Poof—used against Israeli interceptors. Now, the more interesting point is this—and I won’t read much longer—it could take three to eight years to replenish the THAAD interceptor stockpile. Three to eight years. Each interceptor is valued at 12.7 million dollars. The total procurement for this year—the official budget request—is for 37 interceptors, at a total of 840 million dollars. That’s just the request; it doesn’t mean they’ll actually come on stream. So it’ll take quite a while. They’re not ready. #Pascal They're not ready. They don't—hey, very brief intermission, because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this could happen again anytime. So please consider subscribing not only here, but also to my mailing list on Substack—that’s pascallottaz.substack.com. The link’s in the description below. And now, back to the video. They’re not ready. But then, Thomas, maybe you can jump in here. I mean, if you combine that with—Thomas made the argument—you know, the media drumbeat is relentless and creates this sense of urgency. What does that tell us, Thomas? #Thomas Karat It's a good question. I fully agree. I also heard Mishama say that Netanyahu actually begged Trump not to attack right now. On the other hand, the buildup we're seeing here is massive. They can’t sustain this for very long. So if Trump is aware of what Rainer just said, then it could point to, let’s say, power diplomacy—if you can call it that—building up pressure to achieve a certain goal. I don’t know. #Pascal Reiner, what do you make of it? If they’re not ready, and it’s clear to you they’re not ready, then what’s the strategy? I mean, it’s kind of a dumb thing to show up with a force smaller than the one you used before, when you also didn’t attack. Are they under this “Venezuela syndrome,” where they think that by having enough assets, they can somehow make their point and push through their demands? #Rainer Rupp Put it this way: only a non-military man, or someone who’s been smoking something in the military— which, I suppose, happens occasionally—could come to that conclusion. But you talk about strategy. What was the strategy in Venezuela? You see, about half a year before the Russian special operation in Ukraine, there was a long, many‑page article in the New York Times where military men, politicians, and the Pentagon were boasting about what they had achieved over the last decades. They claimed they had now reached the point where they could, everywhere around the world, do the kind of thing that happened in Venezuela. -- 3 of 9 -- Sixty thousand men in arms, half of them special forces trained for very specific kinds of operations under the Pentagon, the other half under the command of the CIA. They would all operate together or independently, depending on the task. They could go anywhere in the world and be out within 24 hours—to kidnap someone, eliminate someone, or whatever. That’s what they thought would be the future of warfare. They’d been preparing for all that since the end of the Cold War. And since 2007— since Putin was laughed at, the laughingstock, I think it was in Munich—people said, “He’ll come around, you can go home, we don’t want to talk with you, you have to do what we tell you.” Things changed after that. And you must remember—and I do remember very well—how the blueprints, for instance, in Russian military science, had absolutely everything. Stunning, stunning military scientific breakthroughs, which we now see being deployed in the field. Only in those days, when those theoretical breakthroughs had been achieved, they were just far off. The Russians, or the Soviets, didn’t have the means to miniaturize these things. Meanwhile, digital developments have allowed that miniaturization, and now they’re implemented in electronic warfare, in all kinds of systems— hypersonic missiles, drones, even an underwater missile, which, by the way, the Iranians also have. The NATO code name was for what they called an aircraft carrier killer—especially developed for that purpose—which travels underwater in some kind of plasma or gas bubble. The only countries that have managed that are the Soviets, now the Russians, and the Iranians. Why the Iranians? Because when the Soviet military-industrial complex collapsed, a lot of scientists from the Central Asian socialist republics preferred to go to Iran. The Iranians were not stupid. They said, “Come on, you can have good work here.” They preferred working in Iran rather than being taxi drivers in Moscow, as many of these highly skilled people had to earn their living somehow. So the Shkval arrived in Iran as well. It’s got a different code name, it’s been further developed, and it travels underwater at speeds of about 360 kilometers per hour. Its only disadvantage is that the range isn’t very long, and it makes an awful lot of noise—but it can be fired from a small boat. The Iranians have practiced swarm attacks with these little boats, and so, you see, American ships are really in danger if they get too close. #Pascal Do you think the Americans are trying to bait the Iranians into firing the first shot? You know, Thomas actually made the observation that the aircraft carrier now parked in front of Iran is nuclear- powered, so attacking it could potentially lead to an ecological catastrophe. #Rainer Rupp Well, this has always been, I mean, the modus operandi of the Americans—to provoke someone so much that the other side fires the first shot. I mean, what happened at Pearl Harbor? Yeah, that didn’ t come out of the blue sky, as the Americans say. No, the Americans tried to strangle the Japanese. I’ -- 4 of 9 -- m not defending the Japanese fascists or imperialists of the time—they did horrible things in China and in the region—but the Americans tried to strangle them, to cut the Japanese off from the supply of oil, and so on. So what did they do? They used their navy to block Japan’s access to supplies. And what did the Japanese do? They thought they could eliminate the threat by destroying the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii—which they didn’t do very well. #Pascal