TEHRAN - They say Trump is the savior, protests are democracy, and tanks are on the streets of Iran; yet the admissions of American analysts expose the collapse of the Western media narrative. The issue is not Iran; the issue is a lie that must fall.

One of the most significant blows to the project of glorifying Trump did not come from Tehran but from the heart of American academia. Sina Azodi, assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at George Washington University, bluntly stated that Donald Trump is committed neither to human rights nor democracy; he has even weakened democratic institutions within the United States. This assertion fundamentally undermines the media portrayal of Trump as a “supporter of the Iranian people.”

Azodi goes further, emphasizing that the U.S. president uses Iran’s internal developments not to promote freedom but to compel Tehran into a one-sided agreement that serves Washington’s interests. In other words, “democracy advocacy” in this discourse is not a value but a consumable tool—a tool with an expiration date, discarded once its use ends, just as has been experienced in dozens of other countries.

Peace-loving Trump or terrorism-tolerant Trump?

This duality becomes even clearer when Trump himself describes the former leaders of Syrian terrorist groups and the current president of that country as “powerful and hardworking men,” claiming that the world’s worst terrorists are in Syria and are being monitored by al-Jolani. These remarks are not verbal slips but the real translation of American policy logic—where terrorism, if serving Washington’s interests, can be sanitized.

Within this framework, the obvious question arises: how can a man who has turned Syria into blood and rubble bring freedom to Iran? The answer is clear: the goal is not freedom but the orchestration of the stage for a more profitable deal.

Confessions from within the U.S. security structure

Amid this media construction, confessions from Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and intelligence officer, reveal another layer of reality. He emphasizes that Mossad, the CIA, and MI6 extensively used Starlink to communicate with their operatives, and Iran was able to monitor, disrupt, and neutralize these communication networks.

According to Ritter, the internet shutdown was not a blind or repressive action but part of a security measure to sever foreign intelligence agencies’ access to their operational networks. This direct admission fundamentally discredits media narratives portraying the internet blackout merely as a “crime against the people.”

Tanks seen only on television

Despite these facts, some Persian-language networks went further, speaking of “martial law” and “tanks on the streets of Iran.” Narratives that align neither with the lived experience of the people nor with on-the-ground realities. The bitter part is that individuals who traverse those same streets daily, seeing nothing unusual, still believe the television narrative.

Here, we are no longer dealing with a simple news lie; we are facing the suspension of collective rationality.

Engineering minds: A binary world

In this narrative, there is an absolute black point called the Islamic Republic and a white point encompassing everything defined as outside it. There is no gray area because understanding gray requires thinking, and this project is fundamentally unconcerned with thought.

This narrative rides on emotion, anger, and accumulated frustrations—especially among socially marginalized youth who have neither the opportunity to express their abilities nor the chance to release positive energy. This human capital is exactly what networks like Iran International and Manoto have extracted from Iranian society and placed at the service of external political projects.

From real protests to engineered chaos

The reality is that, in the early days, protesting citizens and shopkeepers were indeed present in the streets. Yet these protests quickly escalated into violence. According to Western sources and statements from detainees, shots were fired at close range, targeting vital points, and the order was given to “strike.”

Attacks on military centers to seize weapons and expand violence indicate that this was not merely a protest but a coup attempt in progress. Had it succeeded, it would have unleashed a bloodbath with tens of thousands of casualties.

Iranian society: Beyond media deception

Here lies the greatest miscalculation of Western analysts and their affiliated media. They have reduced Iran to television audiences, cyber armies, and the emotional outbursts of social media users. Meanwhile, the majority of Iranians are neither consumers of these media nor willing to trade their country’s security for virtual chaos.

Iranian society may be critical, it may feel pain, but when faced with foreign threats, it draws a line and unites—a lesson repeatedly demonstrated throughout history.

The sanctions architect’s admission: Iran is not Venezuela

Richard Nephew, the architect of U.S. sanctions against Iran, inadvertently admits that Iran is neither Venezuela nor a country that can be brought to its knees through economic pressure. This acknowledgment is a document of strategic failure for a policy long promoted with fanfare.

Simultaneously, media outlets such as The Hill emphasize that the U.S. lacks both the military capability to attack Iran and the capacity to manage its consequences.

Ultimately, Trump is not going to save the Iranian people. He has not even spared his allies—from Europe to Greenland. Iran is not Venezuela; Iran is a society that has shown, in Tabas, Ain al-Asad, the 12-day war, and recent unrest, that it does not collapse under threat.

The main issue for them is not Iran. The issue is a nation that has not yet surrendered and has not handed its collective intellect over to rented media.