Iran is leading a pernicious demilitarized offensive which penetrates consciousness, manipulates emotions, and exacerbates identity fractures in France with each new event, says Sophia Mahroug. The photograph of small white sneakers speckled with blood of a child killed in Gaza is published on a pro-Iran Telegram channel.
Behind the horror of war lies the perfectly mastered exploitation of images and the narrative of the "axis of resistance" that Iran forms with its regional allies, she says. The lack of collegial reflection leads us today to great confusion around the Islamic Republic in the media debate, says Mahroug. She says French research, which only twenty years ago could boast of having excellent Iranianologists, is faced with great difficulties in renewing its historiography of Iran, lack of sources, security, and lack of access to the land. "A look of historians and political scientists directed at the political thought of this regime would, however, help us to better understand the substance of these Telegram channels," she adds. Iran's "soft defense" penetrates consciousness, manipulates emotions, and exacerbates identity fractures in France. The Revolutionary Guards who lead the "soft defense" are not clerics; they are trained in civil and military engineering, excel at taekwondo, and reign over the media, construction companies, insurance companies, and banks. The same supplication for an imminent annihilation of the power of the mullahs – a master story which finds its origin in the journalistic glossary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 – is now obsolete. To get to the root of the problem, active participation of Iran's human and social sciences researchers is necessary to translate the scientific literature offered by the regime's numerous think tanks and social networks, writes Mahroug. He adds that a simple technical dismantling of these broadcast channels translated into French will not be enough. Other accounts will then be created, and new platforms will certainly be offered, he says. The Iranian " soft defense' intelligently relies on the praise of the underprivileged to gain the good graces of audiences previously chosen to be manipulated.