By Xavier Villar
MADRID - There is an art, almost a science, to the construction of a journalistic narrative that, under the appearance of balance and rigor, guides the reader toward a predetermined conclusion. This is not the overt propaganda of the twentieth century, with its recognizable slogans and incendiary language, but a more sophisticated procedure.
In it, the institutional authority of the outlet is combined with precise editorial choices: a carefully selected verb, an apparently innocuous adjective, a strategic omission, all working together to produce an effect of reality that ultimately aligns with a specific geopolitical interest. Recent coverage of protests in Iran by major Western media, particularly The New York Times, offers a revealing example of this mechanism. More than a simple chronicle of events, it functions as an exercise in framing, in which the narrative of internal situation is subtly interwoven with that of a contained and rational external threat.
The process begins at the most elementary level of language. Consider a sentence presented as purely descriptive in a Times article published during the twelve-day war: “Israel bombed Iranian military and nuclear facilities, while Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles against Israel.” Grammatical symmetry conceals a significant semantic asymmetry. The verb “bombed” is associated with a tactically delimited action, one susceptible to strategic justification. The explicit reference to “military and nuclear facilities” reinforces an image of precision and rationality. By contrast, the expression “launched a barrage” evokes indiscriminate, almost archaic violence, while the mention of “ballistic missiles” adds a note of existential threat and technological excess.
What this sentence, impeccable in its syntax, systematically excludes is any mention of the nature of the targets struck by Iranian missiles. Open-source evidence and official Israeli statements confirmed that several projectiles hit military and intelligence installations. By omitting this information, the narrative allows the reader to infer that the Iranian attack was essentially blind and directed at civilians, while the Israeli action was surgical. This omission becomes even more consequential when another structural factor is ignored: Israel’s policy of locating critical military infrastructure, including command centers and intelligence facilities, within densely populated urban areas such as Tel Aviv. This well-documented practice complicates any military response and makes civilian proximity inevitable. Once this context disappears, causality is reversed. What is a structural consequence is narratively transformed into proof of irrational aggression.
This linguistic framing prepares the ground for a broader narrative: that of Israeli restraint in the face of Iranian provocation. The article states, citing analysts, that Israel views the possibility of a US attack on Iran with caution due to the “risk of retaliation.” Israel thus appears as a reluctant actor, almost trapped in an escalation driven by others. This portrayal requires a selective historical amnesia.
For at least two decades, pushing the United States toward a direct confrontation with Iran has been an explicit strategic objective of successive Israeli governments, supported by sustained diplomatic and lobbying efforts in Washington. Presenting Israel as apprehensive about such a scenario contradicts both its public rhetoric and the repeated testimony of its own leaders. Yet the newspaper reproduces this claim without subjecting it to scrutiny, without historical context or analytical contrast. The narrative of restraint must be preserved, because it sustains the image of a rational actor confronted with an inherently destabilizing one.
The decontextualization of internal power
The treatment of Iran’s internal actors follows a parallel logic. When describing the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, the Times notes that they are “highly motivated to defend the existing power structure, given that their fate is tied to that of the government.” Presented as analytical insight, the statement is, in fact, a tautology applicable to any state security apparatus. One does not write that the Pentagon is highly motivated to defend the US political system because its authority and budget depend on it. That relationship is assumed. In the Iranian case, however, it is emphasized to suggest a self-interested, almost pathological loyalty devoid of ideological or social legitimacy. The institutional coherence of a non-aligned state thus becomes an object of suspicion.
This rhetorical shift contributes to a portrayal in which the Iranian state appears as an alien body, sustained solely by fear or personal gain, while Western states function through institutional inertia and implicit consensus. The result is not merely analytical simplification but a moral hierarchy of political systems.
The most striking rhetorical turn in this coverage is the transformation of Israel’s supposed abstention into a display of humanitarian concern for Iranian protesters. One analyst is quoted as saying that Israel must “make the maximum effort to be perceived as observing events from the outside,” so as not to provide the Iranian government with “proof” to justify a security response. In this way, the same state that, according to United Nations data, caused thousands of civilian casualties in its air campaign of June 2025, is portrayed as a responsible bystander, attentive to the welfare of Iranian citizens. The contradiction is not examined. It is normalized.
When facts do not alter the narrative
The collision between this framing and publicly available facts is evident. The article’s headline states that “Israel is closely watching the protests in Iran but remains cautious about intervention.” Yet statements by senior Israeli and US officials directly contradict this claim. An Israeli cabinet minister, Gila Gamliel-Demri, openly stated that Mossad agents were in Iran “at this moment.” The Mossad’s official account itself posted messages in Persian addressed to protesters with an unequivocal message: “We are with you. Not only from afar and with words. We are with you on the ground.” Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and former secretary of state, has also written openly about the presence of Israeli agents alongside protesters.
Faced with these statements, which constitute primary sources of the highest order, the Times adopts a peculiar strategy. It records them but neutralizes them. They appear as secondary elements, without the capacity to reconfigure the article’s overarching frame. The fact that an intelligence service publicly announces its operational presence inside a country experiencing social upheaval does not become the axis of analysis. The central question, how the thesis of caution toward intervention can be sustained in light of such statements, remains unanswered. Facts are subordinated to narrative.
This is not accidental. Its function is not to illuminate the complexity of Iran’s situation. Its function is to prepare the cognitive ground. By presenting Iran as a space of internal chaos aggravated by the irrational aggression of its own government, and Israel and, by extension, the West as patient and defensive actors, a particular status quo is legitimized. Sanctions, diplomatic pressure and military threats appear as natural, even moral, responses to a “regime” portrayed as inherently violent and illegitimate.
The true power of this mechanism lies in its invisibility. The reader is not confronted with pamphlets but with seemingly balanced analysis, expert quotations, and a measured tone. Yet the architecture of information, the predominance of Western sources, the asymmetric language, and the structural omissions produce a manufactured consensus. This is hegemony operating not through direct imposition but through the construction of a discursive reality that becomes indistinguishable from the facts themselves.
Understanding this process of framing is a necessary step toward recovering a more honest and perhaps more sovereign view of the complex reality unfolding inside and beyond Iran.
At the same time, the hypothesis of covert actions that could increase risks for protesters is not raised. The line between observation and interference is deliberately blurred in favor of the dominant narrative frame.
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