Amid the ongoing war with the United States and Israel, Tehran has stunned observers not only with its missile and drone capabilities but with a sophisticated propaganda machine that produces slick, highly engaging videos to shape global narratives, sow division, and exploit political fault lines in Western and allied camps.
Surprisingly, Iran is outperforming the US in the information and disinformation war, producing engaging and highly viral propaganda videos that have captured global attention, despite its limited traditional entertainment industry, highly restrictive media, and relatively underdeveloped domestic anime or AI ecosystem.
In contrast, the US, with the full might of Hollywood and Silicon Valley at its disposal, appears to be lagging behind Tehran in narrative effectiveness and online engagement.
Tehran has also grasped a key lesson of modern influence operations: the message and its presentation matter as much as the medium itself.
Gone are the days of rigid Islamic Revolutionary rhetoric, Shia martyrdom tropes, and heavy-handed Soviet-style productions that felt preachy, somber, and devoid of entertainment value.
The new wave of slick videos emerging from Iran’s propaganda factory is fast-paced, visually engaging, and often infused with humor, Western pop culture, and viral formats, such as AI-generated Lego-style animations set to rap soundtracks, designed to captivate rather than lecture.
The choice of Lego-style animations, cartoon anime, and rap soundtracks also underscores that Tehran is not only targeting domestic or Global South audiences; rather, Iran is targeting the Western audience itself, with the objective of sowing discontent and dissent in the opposition camp and exploiting the existing fault lines in the US-Israel alliance.
Together, these videos create an image of the US war in disarray, portraying Washington and Tel Aviv’s war objectives as unrealistic, showing the Western camp as a divided house, and dismissing President Trump as living in a cuckooland, who has lost touch with reality, and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppet-master, who is able to manipulate and control Trump for his own interests.
A consistent theme is that for Trump, it is no longer America first, but Israel first, and his miscalculations are hurting the Americans while he fights Netanyahu’s war. The aim seems to draw a wedge between the US and Israel, and to disconnect Trump from his MAGA support base.
Furthermore, Iran’s diplomatic missions worldwide actively distribute and promote these videos, dramatically expanding their international reach and impact.
Since the war started on February 28, the X (formerly Twitter) handles of various Iranian embassies have effectively transformed into new propaganda tools for the IRGC.
The reason seems to be two-fold. One, since the war started, the internet has been highly restricted in Iran, and only a few platforms close to the IRGC have been allowed internet access.
The foreign embassies, however, have unrestricted access to the internet.
Secondly, often these foreign embassies have substantial foreign audiences. For instance, ‘Iran in India’ (https://x.com/Iran_in_India), the official X handle of the Iranian embassy in India has close to 100,000 followers, many of them Indians.
On May 1, the Iranian embassy in Ghana shared an over two-minute-long Lego-style video, depicting the US’s botched rescue operation for its second F-15 fighter jet pilot on April 5 in southern Iran, in which the US Air Force lost multiple aircraft.
While the US admitted that its forces deliberately destroyed two MC-130J Commando II special operations transport planes, Iranian forces claimed that their forces shot down two more C-130s, and two Black Hawk helicopters were also destroyed.
You will be defeated again. #Lego pic.twitter.com/hUMaDXSFcv
— Iran in Ghana (@IRAN_GHANA) May 1, 2026
The video shows US forces coming under heavy Iranian fire and US soldiers as sitting ducks, surrounded by hundreds of Iranian soldiers ambushing the US rescue team from their positions on the mountain tops.
The rap song playing in the background has these lyrics:
Trap got closed when the fire came near
Confidence gone, replaced by fear
You came and silent, left in smoke
Strong words broken, power broke
Mission turned fast when pressure arrived
Came for control, ran to survive
You called it rescue, looked like retreat
Dust on your boots, fire in the heat
When pride goes blind and reads wrong signs
Even big empires fall sometimes..
Earlier, on April 22, the Iranian embassy in South Korea shared another Lego-themed video, showing the US bombing of girls’ primary school and hospitals in Iran.
This viral new Iranian LEGO animation is out :watch it.
First threats, then attacks… now talk of negotiations?
That’s not strength it’s refusing to accept defeat.
We are Iranian; despite all the pressure, we stand firm and will keep standing. pic.twitter.com/VaRUFE7U4b— Iran embassy in Seoul (@IraninSKorea) April 22, 2026
“You started by bombing hospitals, kids, defenseless, vulnerable, then you bombed oil facilities of Khark and Bushehr. Bro, that ain’t gonna cover Epstein for you.”
This is a common theme, where Iranians allege that Trump has started this war only to divert people’s attention from the Epstein files.
In another Lego-style video shared by the Iranian embassy in Sweden, Tehran depicted the US as openly committing war crimes. It showed an Iranian nurse (inspired by the real-life story of Neda Salimi) rescuing newborn babies from a bombed Iranian hospital.
Not all heroes wear capes.
This short animation is dedicated to Neda Salimi, an Iranian nurse who ran back into the fire to save the newborns when the hospital was being bombed.
And let us not forget that the US & Israel bomb hospitals.
And this is a WAR CRIME. pic.twitter.com/aa905uoP8f
— Iran Embassy in Sweden (@IRANinSWEDEN) May 3, 2026
These videos often mix childlike Lego visuals with dark themes – missile strikes, child casualties, “vengeance,” etc., making them highly impactful.
The Lego-style videos, set to AI-generated rap or memes, also tap into Western pop culture and a universal design theme.
Common themes covered in these Lego-style videos include the US knowingly committing war crimes and deliberately bombing civilian sites in Iran, showing the people of Iran fighting heroically and defending their country, and the US war strategy as confused and ineffective.
They also frame the conflict as a war of aggression by the US, and show Iranians fighting the good and necessary battle, not only for the Iranian people but on behalf of all those people in the world who have been attacked by the US.
A popular non-Lego video released by Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB shows IRGC soldiers sacrificing their lives to avenge the native American tribes dislodged from their lands, the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings, victims of US bombing in Vietnam, Yemen, and Palestine. The video also shows a little girl dressed in white on what the video calls ‘Epstein Island’, as well as an Iranian schoolgirl, representing the victims of a primary school bombing by the US in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the conflict.
”One Vengeance For All / すべての人々のための復讐”
イラン国営放送 IRIB が公開した動画。pic.twitter.com/bhjoQ4Gwkb
— 霜月 やよい@「数」と「幾何学」と「象徴」 (@As_above_So_me) March 25, 2026
The video ends with these words:
“One Vengeance For All/vengeance for All People.”
Another AI-generated video circulated by Iranian embassies shows Trump in a dream opening the Strait of Hormuz, while world leaders and US allies, such as Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif, French President Macron, and Italian PM Meloni, are dancing.
Social media pages in Iran have circulated AI-generated videos satirizing claims attributed to Donald Trump about the Strait of Hormuz. The clips humorously depict scenarios such as Trump “reopening” the strait in his sleep, followed by Melania Trump waking him up.
The videos… pic.twitter.com/2hTNoMxHkm
— Pakistan Economic Network (@NetPakistan) April 21, 2026
The video shows that Western war goals are unrealistic and that Trump is living in his make-believe world, totally devoid of reality.
Another video shared by the Iranian embassy in the Netherlands shows PM Netanyahu as a boy in the movie “Toy Story,” playing with a Trump-shaped doll.
In the video, Netanyahu tells his Trump-shaped doll, “You’re my favorite toy. You do everything I say.”
New MAGA Toy Story just dropped…
“America First”… but it looks more like Israel comes first. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8cxcCoGQIl— ☫ Iran Embassy in The Hague, The Netherlands (@IRAN_in_NL) April 14, 2026
The videos depict the US as an evil empire and Iran as an underdog that is standing up to a bully.
These videos are trying to tap into the global anti-American, anti-war, and anti-imperial sentiment, which has a long pedigree and pre-dates the Iran War.
This is a clever attempt by Tehran to shift the narrative from its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, or its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has triggered a global oil crisis, to frame the conflict as a righteous and civilizational battle between good versus evil, Western imperialism versus the forces of resistance and sovereignty, and the oppressed Muslim world.
The videos are widely shared online, even by non-Iranian accounts, and are definitely helping Tehran push its own narrative of the war. Iran is also showing the world that one can shape narratives on Western platforms like X even with a rudimentary entertainment industry and an underdeveloped AI and animation ecosystem.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
