Déjà Vu? Iranian PSYOP Against Israel in the 2025 Conflict

This paper examines Iran’s Psychological Operations against Israel during the Twelve-Day War (June 13–24, 2025), which erupted with Israel’s surprise Operation Rising Lion targeting Iran’s nuclear and other military sites, followed by Iran’s retaliatory Operation True Promise III. Framed within Iran’s long-term “soft war” doctrine, hybrid warfare strategy, and the “axis of resistance” proxy militias (Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s al-Hashd al-Sha’bi, and Yemen’s Houthis), the study analyzes how the IRGC and associated entities employed PSYOP as a force multiplier to compensate for conventional military asymmetries. Key objectives included projecting psychological resilience, cultivating narratives of strategic parity, deterring aggression, eroding Israeli civilian morale, exploiting societal divisions, and framing outcomes as Iranian victories despite limited kinetic success.