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In a blistering breakdown of U.S. media complicity, Glenn Greenwald dissects what he calls one of the most brazen propaganda stunts of the new Iran war: CNN’s Jake Tapper inviting an Israeli activist to speak on behalf of 96 million Iranians. The segment, Greenwald argues, is not just sloppy journalism — it’s a deliberate revival of the neocon playbook that sold the Iraq War, now dusted off and deployed with even less subtlety.
Greenwald, who has spent decades documenting war propaganda, says even he is stunned by how “crude and degraded” the messaging has become. Tapper’s guest — a pro‑Israel activist living in Israel, married to a former IDF soldier, and tied to Israeli intelligence circles — was presented as a voice for ordinary Iranians under bombardment. Predictably, she claimed that Iranians “overwhelmingly support” U.S. and Israeli strikes on their own cities, infrastructure, and schools.
Greenwald calls the tactic “classic neocon theater”: find a friendly partisan, dress them up as a representative of the targeted population, and let them tell Americans exactly what Washington wants to hear — that the people being bombed are grateful.
He draws direct parallels to Paul Wolfowitz’s infamous 2003 testimony assuring Congress that Iraqis would “welcome us as liberators.” The script, Greenwald notes, hasn’t changed in 23 years. Only the target has.
The segment also exposes the deeper rot: a media class that reflexively aligns with Israeli state narratives, a political establishment eager to launder another war through cable news, and a public expected to swallow the same lies that led to catastrophe in Iraq.
Greenwald’s message is blunt: the propaganda is back, the actors are the same, and the stakes are even higher.