"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Unreconstructed conspiracy theorists, some viscerally anti-American and most obsessively anti-Israel, often openly antisemitic, are spreading lies and disinformation amid the war in the Middle East and lionising the brutal Islamist dictator Ayatollah Khamenei
It has the distinctive air of 1989. Or as Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad put it: “This is a Berlin Wall moment. Let’s tear this wall down. Then America will be safe without the Islamic Republic.”
1989 was not only a watershed because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was also the year Ayatollah Khomeini launched his murderous fatwa against Salman Rushdie. He did it a decade after the bloody rise to power of the mollahs who founded the Islamic Republic. The decrepit predecessor to Ali Khamenei branded the acclaimed British novelist an infidel and blasphemer who had insulted the Prophet, calling on Muslims everywhere to avenge Allah by killing Rushdie and anyone associated with his book.
In 1989 Khomeini peddled a deadly fiction. It was a sprawling conspiracy theory that The Satanic Verses formed part of a deliberate Western plot, driven by Rushdie and orchestrated by the “Great Satan” America, Israel and their allies, to defame Islam. Above all it was an attack on universal values and principles of freedom including freedom of speech and expression. The lie whipped up congregations in mosques and mobs across the globe. Rushdie was forced into hiding, condemned to death for the “crime” of refusing to renounce his novel.
Many tried to carry out Khomeini's wishes, and fatwas renewed by his successor Ali Khamenei. More than 50 people including translators and bookstore owners were attacked and killed from Italy to Japan. People died in mob violence across the world. But the campaign of intimidation, and its western translation into the lethal libel of Islamophobia for each person who dared criticise Islam the religion did not end. It culminated in August 2022, when Rushdie was stabbed, blinded in one eye and almost killed by a pro-Iran jihadist in upstate New York. Today he has outlived two ayatollahs who wanted him dead and continues to write.
Just as in 1989, when a vocal minority on both the hard left and the hard right were uneasy at the collapse of Communist ideology and the Cold War order that had served their interests, and when far too few on the liberal left were prepared to defend Rushdie and free speech in the face of Islamist intimidation, the same reflex is visible again.
Unreconstructed conspiracy theorists, some viscerally anti-American and most obsessively anti-Israel, often openly antisemitic, are crawling out of the woodwork and all over social media. They are spreading lies and disinformation and deliberately positioning themselves on the wrong side of history - as written by the ayatollahs. Their viral posts abhor blows struck against the mullahs’ regime even as Iranians celebrate in the streets. In activism that goes far beyond any rational "anti-war" militancy, they recycle vile Jew-hating narratives and sentimentalise the killing of the brutal dictator Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior figures of his theocracy.
In London, a pro-regime demonstration just before news broke of the strike that killed the 86-year-old Supreme Leader, featured posters of the Ayatollah and rang with chants of “Death to Israel!”, “Death to America!”, “Khamenei, you make us proud!”, cries of “martyrs” and “Allahu Akbar!”, and accusations of “baby killers!”. It emitted vibes of a defiant wake.
The nostalgics of the 1979 Islamist revolution are now grieving Khamenei: terrorist, theocratic dictator, Supreme Leader. They are the veteran conspiracy-minded fellow travellers of the mullahs. They betrayed Iranians in 1979 and Rushdie and the West in 1989. They are betraying us all again.
A ringleader is the Iran propaganda channel Press TV presenter and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (removed for allowing antisemitism in the party), along with his ideological offspring that he enabled such as UK Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali. There are veteran anti-Western conspiracists like George Galloway, and Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone, alongside a newer breed of Khamenei apologists on the Israel-hating extreme left and right, from podcasters like Cenk Uygur to MAGA and pro-Kremlin influencers such as Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Dan Bilzerian.
At the pro-regime London demonstration as US and Israeli strikes began, Jeremy Corbyn joined his brother, the avowedly antisemitic conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn (infamous for being arrested during the Covid pandemic distributing anti-vaccine flyers with Holocaust imagery). It was hours before the official announcement of Khamenei’s death. The demonstrators were finally worked up about Iran - but not about the 30,000 estimated people murdered by the regime only weeks earlier in the bloodiest putdown of a popular uprising in years. They brandished posters with images of Khamenei’s face and the slogan, “The right side of history.”
It is not a side Corbyn has ever occupied. A long-serving propagandist for the regime and a man who has recently spread antisemitic blood libel conspiracies, including claims about Israelis harvesting organs, he has long aligned himself with figures close to Hezbollah and Hamas. Here he was again, mourning the targeted strikes that led to the death of the dictator Khamenei.
Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali, who came to international attention when he glorified the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 on the day they happened as a “fight back against the occupiers” with a “White supremacist european (sic) settler colonialism must end!!” and called Gaza “the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen”, also joined the demonstration. He denounced the killing of Khamenei as “deplorable.”
“I’m proudly anti-war,” Ali declared without a shred of irony, given his celebration of Hamas’ attacks on Jews in 2023, or mention of the regime’s war on its own people that only a month earlier led to them slaughtering an estimated 30,000 people during the latest protests against the Mullahs. “The US and Israel took a unilateral decision in the midst of negotiations to kill the Iranian leader, and opted for war.”
Among the organisers of the protest was the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) which has demonstrated links to the Tehran regime and has had calls from cross-party parliamentarians for it to be disbanded as an official UK charity. The pro-Mullahs outfit was instrumental in pushing the violent campaigns of calumny and conspiracy theories about Salman Rushdie being a “blasphemist” and lobbying at the international level in favour of the concept of “Islamophobia.”
At the same march Corbyn’s Your Party colleague Zarah Sultana fused Tehran with Epstein in classic conspiracist Jew-baiting style:
“Let’s be clear, Donald Trump and the Epstein class that have enabled genocide in Gaza are now blowing up Iranian children and setting the Middle East on fire to enrich themselves and cover up their paedophilic crimes. We need to build a mass movement to stop them.”
In Washington, far left Democrat Congressional Representative Rashida Tlaib was widely censured for saying “both the U.S. and genocidal Israel doesn’t care about the laws,” referring to the U.S. as “they” and prompting calls for her resignation.
“It's clear that the genocidal govt of Israel doesn't care about children + human life including our own loved ones in the military,” Tlaib posted on X. “And now they are attacking elected officials in the U.S. for opposing the war with Iran. This post from their genocide war room is disgusting.”
Never disappointing, the friend of mass murdering dictators and former parliamentarian George Galloway railed against the strike on Khamenei, whom he lionised as a “slain… martyr” and victim of a “crime against Islam, crime against humanity, war crime.”
On X he framed the killing as part of what he called the “Epstein war” and “Operation Jeffrey Epstein.”
“What genius thought that murdering an 86 year-old ayatollah during Ramadan was a good idea…?”
On his YouTube show MOATS, Galloway expanded the thesis, weaving together Tehran, Tel Aviv, Washington and Epstein into a single conspiracist narrative.
With the demise of Khamenei after 36 years of iron-fisted absolutist rule, the eminence grise of the pro-Ayatollah Islamo-leftist international, conspiracy theorist Richard Falk was widely recirculated online, particularly his notably notorious 1979 New York Times portrait of Khomeini:
“The depiction as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false,” Falk wrote at the time of the Islamic revolution. The Ayatollah apologist who went on to high profile roles where he could spread anti-western and Israel conspiracies as a UN special envoy, Princeton academic and 9/11 truther, described Khomeini’s advisers as “moderate, progressive individuals,” praised their “notable record of concern for human rights,” and even predicted: “Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.”
After that work of false ‘prophesy’ Falk went on to roles as a UN official and became known as a highly influential peddler of conspiracies including 9/11 trutherism falsely blaming the United States for deliberating engineering the September 11, 2001 Al Qaida terrorist attacks on America as a pretext for waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Anti-Defamation League has warned that influencers already steeped in antisemitic or anti-Zionist rhetoric are using the Iran strikes to revive older conspiracy theories, including blaming Israel for 9/11 and resurrecting the “dancing Israelis” trope.
Some rebranded Operation Epic Fury as “Operation Epstein Fury,” presenting it as a distraction from the Epstein files and fusing narratives of Jewish power, pedophilia and global control.
Protests across the United States featured Hamas flags, PFLP (terrorist group People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine) insignia and chants claiming the U.S. government is “occupied by Israel.” ZOG rhetoric resurfaced yet again.
Moscow-based Kremlin promoter Jackson Hinkle effectively appointed himself spokesman for the eliminated Ayatollah, posting images of Khamenei as a “Hero” and declaring “We stand with Iran,” while denouncing the United States as “The Great Satan.”
Former MAGA conservative influencer turned Jew-hating Holocaust denier Candace Owens recycled the fake ‘Khazar theory’ claiming Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Khazars and escalated it into open eliminationist rhetoric:
“The FILTHIEST PEOPLE. The most — shudders in disgust — who work in the most DEBASED industries. It’s not entertainment. It’s always been disgusting. It’s always been about FILTH, prostitution. Importing people from Vienna. And trying to collapse America. Successful across Europe. Here we are today. This is what we’re facing in America.”
“Goyim always must die so the Khazarian mafia can expand their borders.”
She amplified another post declaring: “The genocidal pedophiles just started another war.”
Then Owens recycled older conspiracy theories including that Israel was behind terrorist attacks like September 11, 2001. In reply to a video featuring Benjamin Netanyahu she wrote on X: “You murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11. For starters.”
“From 9/11 to the Lavon Affair and many [sic] inbetween, false-flags are the Israeli way. Mossad agents are taught that they will inherit the earth ‘by way of deception’. Bibi wants a third world war so they can hit a global reset— as they have done everytime people start noticing.”
Meanwhile the neo-Nazi, Shoah negationist authoritarian-admiring masculinity guru and Dan Bilzerian, one of X’s top ten antisemitic influencers wrote:
“There is absolutely no justification for attacking Iran. The only country we should be attacking is Israel. Our country is controlled by jewish pedophiles and this war is to distract from the Epstein coverup.”
On March 5 Bilzerian appeared on the Adolf Hitler-admiring Kanye West and Andrew Tate buddy, YouTuber Sneako’s podcast blaring: "The only battle today that I see worth fighting is ext*rminating lsraeI. I would sign up tomorrow to k*ll lsraeIi's. Give me a rifle and send me the fck over there. The majority of that country is evil, suppressing PaIestinians, operating like terr*rists, they're arrogant bstards. They need top be wiped off the map."
Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi estranged MAGA influencer, posted before Khamenei’s death:
“Zionist Jews have recaptured the Ivy League universities, acquired Warner Bros and Tiktok, and are now preparing a war to topple the Iranian regime…”
After the strikes, he continued to reference conspiracy theories like ZOG or Zionist Occupied Government stating:
“This war has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, terrorism, or dead protesters… Israel orchestrated all of these wars in order to eliminate their rivals and gain total hegemony.”
On March 2, he elaborated on his conspiracies about Israel wanting to control the world:
“This is a war of aggression for Israel. Americans will die in terrorist attacks and in missile strikes so that Israel can expand its borders in every direction. Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out.”
The pattern is everything but subtle. Tehran falls under fire, and within minutes the conspiratorial ecosystem fuses Tehran, Tel Aviv, Washington and Epstein into one seamless narrative of Jewish control and Western deceit.
The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, long aligned with pro-Hamas rhetoric, posted what amounted to an elegy for Khamenei:
“I criticized Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei a thousand times. He was oppressing his own people and preventing democracy. But there’s one thing you can’t take away from him, he died on his own two feet, instead of kneeling to Israel. That took courage. He didn’t bow.”
Community notes quickly pointed out that Uygur had scarcely, if ever, mentioned Khamenei before his death. Replies flooded in highlighting the absurdity of romanticising a theocratic ruler responsible for mass executions, torture, repression of women and murderous crackdowns on protesters.
“Was he a dictator? Yes.Did he murder his own citizens who just wanted freedom? Also yes. But you gotta hand it to him. This man absolutely hated Jews. This man absolutely hated Jews.”
Max Blumenthal is a maniacal anti-Zionist activist who has long spread conspiracy theories and hate about Israel and Jews, alongside apologies for terrorists, dictators and war criminals from Vladimir Putin to Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah. Since the Iran strikes started he has been in a lather, spewing out his preferred conspiracy theories including about staged “psy-ops” or psychological operations of the Israeli government.
Media outlets spreading conspiracy theories frequently circulate far-fetched claims about sweeping 'psy-ops'. Blumenthal denied the evidence of assassination plots against Donald Trump by claiming a vast psychological operation led by a cabal of US intelligence, Mossad and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu targeting the American President.
“I demonstrate how the FBI, Israeli intelligence and Netanyahu himself duped Trump into believing that he was hunted by Iranian assassins, leading him into war. In killing the Ayatollah, Trump confirmed the success of the years-long psy-op, declaring, "I got him before he got me", Blumenthal wrote on X.
A toxic cloud of black rain over Iran and surrounding countries following the strikes on the Mullahs’ regime was for him “A perfect metaphor for the Zionist empire”.
Pro-Putin and Gulf States conspiracy theorist and former Trump-MAGA loyalist Tucker Carlson concurred, calling Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil”.
Then Carlson escalated on his own show claiming without evidence, that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had captured and “arrested Israeli Mossad agents” planning bombings in those countries. He asked:
“Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in Gulf countries, which are also being attacked by Iran? Aren’t they on the same side?”
He suggested Israel was trying to sow chaos among American allies in the Arab world.
The far right and far left anti-Israel echo chamber did the rest.
“Tucker Carlson reveals that Qatar and Saudi Arabia caught Mossad agents planting BOMBS to MASSACRE locals,” read one post that was amplified by Candace Owens. She reposted the clip and honed in on the “false flag” conspiracist framing:
“From 9/11 to the Lavon Affair and many in between, false-flags are the Israeli way. Mossad agents are taught that they will inherit the earth ‘by way of deception’. Bibi wants a third world war so they can hit a global reset, as they have done every time people start noticing.”
Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies noted the predictable downstream effect: Muslim Brotherhood-aligned networks circulating Carlson’s video as shareable “proof.”
Convicted conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones also breathlessly relayed Carlson’s claims that “Israel just got caught in a massive attempted false flag.”
In France, Conspiracy Watch’s Tristan Mendès France catalogued some of the wilder online claims.
One pro-Trump, pro-Kremlin QAnon account declared “all is linked,” alleging the strikes were the “obliteration of a cabal” involving Khamenei and the Freemasons, citing the Iranian parliament’s supposed “pyramid form and 33 windows” as proof.
Another claimed:
“#EpsteinFiles expose the pedocriminality of the globalist cabal, with Iran also. Donald Trump exposes and destroys this cabal day after day. Iran with Khomenie (sic)was a part of it.”
The francophone conspiracist Béatrice Rosen invoked astrology, claiming the strikes coincided with a “rare alignment of six planets” and a coming “blood moon,” proof, she implied, of an occult continuum stretching from Babylon to modern geopolitics.
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