Regime Revisionism: Tehran's War Before the Iran War (feat. Jay Solomon & Negar Mojtahedi)

Regime Revisionism: Tehran's War Before the Iran War (feat. Jay Solomon & Negar Mojtahedi)

From The Iran Breakdown with Mark Dubowitz by FDD

April 9, 2026 · 55 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the Iranian regime's crackdown on protests and its use of information warfare to shape narratives.

Back in January, the regime carried out the deadliest crackdown in modern Iranian history. As it gunned down protesters in the streets, it launched a parallel war online. A coordinated campaign to turn a domestic uprising into a so-called CIA–Mossad plot — rewriting the story in real time and pushing that narrative deep into Western discourse. The January crackdown and the narrative battle that accompanied it aren’t isolated incidents. They set conditions for the war that followed, shaping global perception before a single American fighter jet took flight. So, was all of this just another page from the regime’s standard propaganda playbook? Or is information warfare now a core pillar of its survival?

People in this episode

Host: Mark Dubowitz

Guests: Jay Solomon, Negar Mojtahedi

Topics covered

  • Iranian regime
  • propaganda
  • information warfare
  • domestic uprising
  • global perception
  • online narrative

Keywords

  • Iran
  • protests
  • information warfare
  • propaganda
  • CIA
  • Mossad
  • narrative battle
  • global perception

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CIA, Mossad

Places: Iran

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