LENIN once said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Indeed, the past week is an example of this. Decades have elapsed in weeks and by the time you read this, even more decades may have passed. The world has been on the brink of cataclysmic wars since Oct 7, 2023, and it appears now more than ever that we may have reached a point of no return. If America joins Israel’s war on Iran, there will be no turning back.

World wars are not a novelty in our weary world. If you have visited a museum dedicated to them, entire hallways are devoted to the propaganda posters, that were meant to boost morale, rally support or even keep populations duped so that they continued to pledge their support to authoritarian leaders. The Russians used them, so did the Germans. Today, we parse them through the morality of our own times, our own side, and what we see as right or wrong.

World War III will also involve sides vying to control the narrative. This time, the ‘commons’ aren’t the markets or street corners where people would gather between bombing raids. Today, the battle for narrative is fought on virtual platforms like TikTok and X. This electronic battlefield and those dominating it are almost as important as the actual physical dimensions of the real war. Perceptions of dominance and moral superiority are determined in the content produced and disbursed via these channels.

Electronic warfare involves the creation of memes, the proliferation of tweets, the creation of reels, etc. Content and narrative creation have to be in place even before the first missiles hit. Previously, Israel relied on the support of the global media to create narrative dominance. As pointed out by numerous commentators, the perspective presented by CNN, BBC, AP and similar outlets has been skewed in favour of Israel with precedence given to their official (read: Israeli Defence Forces) readouts over the reality on the ground. Even as Gaza is decimated, with hospitals and schools razed and tens of thousands killed, the disproportionate focus has been on the retrieval of the remains of a few Israeli hostages.

The battle for narrative is being fought virtually.

This would have been a reliable route to narrative dominance had the mediascape not been transformed by alternative virtual platforms. Even though the algorithms on X and Insta are not entirely neutral, they are more amenable to being flooded by compelling content from one or the other side. YouTube provides yet another venue for livestreams and discussions that would otherwise not have existed. For instance, recently when Israeli media sources, bots, content producers, etc, began to release images of a hospital (one that had been evacuated and was located close to a defence site) targeted by an Iranian missile, social media platforms highlighted how Israel had bombed most of Gaza’s 36 hospitals. This thread of narrative was used to underscore the fact that Israel is the instigator of the war.

Aware of its weakness on this score, Israel has imposed complete media censorship and is not allowing anyone within Israel to post videos and images, believing that this ban would allow it to have complete control of the circulated content regarding what is being damaged or destroyed. Unfortunately, such censorship is getting harder to enforce since videos of the damage are being leaked anyway. It also means that Iranian sources are releasing their own videos of the damage in Israel.

In the US, the debate about whether America should join the war has been complicated by a war with­­in the Republican Par­ty. The MAGA base that brought President Don­ald Trump to power op­­poses involvement in another Middle East conflict. It has pointed out on X its frustration with US tax dollars being wasted on Israel even in the face of huge domestic issues. In one video MAGA superstar host Tucker Carlson mocked pro-war US Senator Ted Cruz saying he wanted to bomb Iran without knowing anything about the country. In the strangest of collusions, MAGA content is aligning with anti-Israel global content to create narrative dominance.

The outcome of this war is unknown as is the future of the world. If the US joins the war and American pilots or sailors come back in coffins, Trump’s power as president will be decimated. In Trump’s own words, “War is for the weak and Peace is for the strong”. The delay in deciding whether or not to attack suggests that the US is not confident in its position and its president is frustrated with his options. If he chooses to side with Israel, he will lose his MAGA voters, if he chooses to stay out he will lose his Jewish donors. If one chose to tweet about it, they could describe it as a ‘lose-lose situation’.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

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Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2025