In the summer of 1971, The New York Times published a set of secret documents spanning forty-seven volumes, which Americans came to call the Pentagon Papers. These documents revealed that the government which had sent its sons into the Vietnamese jungles was not merely managing a war, but also managing a narrative about that war—and that the two narratives had never once aligned.

At that moment, the German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt grasped what had eluded military leaders and politicians alike: the question was not “Who won?” but rather, “Why did a state lie to its people until it nearly believed its own lie?” She published her reflections in The New York Review of Books in November of that year under the title “Lying in Politics: Reflections on the Pentagon Papers,” later expanding them as the opening chapter of her 1972 book Crises of the Republic. In that work, Arendt identified a phenomenon not confined to America or Vietnam: when the management of image replaces the management of reality, a government does not merely mislead its people—it begins to mislead itself. And when that happens, collapse becomes a matter of time, not strength.

What struck Arendt was not that politicians lied—this is as old as politics itself—but that they began to act as though they believed their lies. The phenomenon she observed, which she herself termed “image-making,” was that decision-makers in Washington were not managing the war in Vietnam as much as they were managing the image they wanted the war to project. And when the true image was exposed, the catastrophe began.

The most compelling testimony did not come from critics, but from one of the architects of the disaster himself. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had led the highest levels of planning in Washington with rigorous methodology, published his memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam in 1995. In it, he wrote the now-iconic admission: “We, in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam, were terribly wrong.” This confession was not merely moral—it was epistemological. The system built to manufacture the image had ultimately lost its ability to perceive reality.

This concept—managing image in place of managing reality—is not merely a historical observation; it is a key to understanding a recurring pattern in state behavior, stretching from Washington in the 1960s to Tehran in recent decades. Here, the question is no longer purely military or even moral, but fundamentally philosophical: what happens to power when it loses its ability to interpret its own actions?

To answer this, one must understand the internal structure of the Iranian system, not merely its external behavior. Here, the German sociologist Max Weber offers three sources of political legitimacy: traditional (based on heritage), charismatic (based on personal leadership), and legal-rational (based on institutions). Yet the Iranian system has built its legitimacy on a fourth, analytically distinct form: symbolic legitimacy of the cause—the collective belief that the state embodies a historical mission greater than itself, a struggle against major powers in which it presents itself as the standard-bearer of the oppressed everywhere, regardless of Arab or non-Arab, Sunni or Shia.

This idea did not emerge in a vacuum. When the Iranian Revolution erupted in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini understood that religious legitimacy alone would not suffice to build regional influence, and that Shiism as a sectarian identity would remain limited in a predominantly Sunni region. He therefore crafted a broader discourse—the discourse of the oppressed versus the arrogant and domineering—transcending sectarian and national boundaries to appeal to all who felt aggrieved in the face of the West, Israel, or existing regimes. This narrative simultaneously united the Lebanese Shia, the Palestinian Sunni, and even secular Arab intellectuals under one banner: “resistance.”

The problem is that this structure carries within it the seeds of its own contradiction. When the cause becomes a tool of influence rather than an end in itself, this form of legitimacy becomes extremely fragile. As the gap between image and reality widens, the narrative is not revised; instead, reality is reshaped to fit it. This is precisely what Arendt observed in Washington—and what is manifest today in Tehran.

For decades, the Iranian system has built its discourse on two non-negotiable pillars: the United States as the distant enemy, and Israel as the existential enemy. This duality was not merely a political stance; it formed the backbone of internal mobilization. Through it, the masses were rallied, sacrifices justified, and legitimacy constructed day by day. Yet the gap between this discourse and actual behavior was quietly widening—until it was suddenly exposed when strikes targeted a stable Gulf state that was not a party to either of these declared conflicts.

The stark paradox emerges when the United Arab Emirates receives missiles and drones, while American aircraft carriers pass within sight without being targeted, and Israel—the most prominent enemy in the rhetoric—remains outside the sphere of direct action. At this point, the question gains undeniable weight: who is the real enemy? And by what principle is this determined?

The implicit answer is more damning than any explicit accusation: the true enemy is not the one who holds different values, but the one who builds a successful model. From here begins the reading of what has occurred. The UAE was not targeted despite its distance from the conflict—but perhaps because of it.

Over half a century, the UAE has built a model that contradicts the core Iranian thesis: that stability, development, and openness are not concessions of identity. A state that emerged on barren Gulf land, possessing little but the will to build and strategic vision, has become one of the most vibrant global hubs and one of the most connected crossroads between East and West. Today, the UAE is not merely a state; it is an irrefutable argument in the global debate on what a nation can achieve when it chooses construction. It has managed religious and cultural diversity—more than two hundred nationalities—within its borders as a source of strength, not a threat.

This prosperous, open, institutional model—capable of success without losing its identity—is precisely what the Iranian thesis cannot withstand. Because the success of the UAE is not merely a neighboring achievement; it is a silent refutation of the ideology that claims confrontation is the only path, and that alignment under the banner of a cause is the necessary price for regional dignity.

When this model endures, military strikes become a substitute for what discourse has failed to achieve. Here, the true Iranian loss is revealed—before any battlefield and beyond any missile.

In political science, the most dangerous transformations are not those openly declared, but those that occur implicitly without explanation. When the definition of “the enemy” is altered without a corresponding narrative to justify the shift, the moral contract between the state and its audience collapses.

A significant portion of Iran’s regional influence has not rested solely on military power, but on the “symbolic legitimacy” of confrontation—a concept now rapidly eroding. What has occurred cannot be read as an isolated deviation, but as an expected manifestation of a long-standing pattern in Iranian conflict management. Ambiguity in defining the enemy is not a flaw in strategy—it is an integral part of it. Yet its cost is cumulative, and it is paid all at once when the truth is exposed.

A Final Word

In his essay Politics and the English Language (1946), George Orwell wrote: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

This statement does not describe a single system; it describes a recurring dynamic in the history of systems that substitute discourse for action, and slogans for truth. The greatest danger facing a state that derives its legitimacy from an idea is not what it loses on the battlefield, but what it loses in its ability to explain its actions. For war is fought on two parallel levels: the level of land and weapons, and the level of narrative and meaning. Defeat on the latter is far more devastating, because it is neither declared nor negotiated.

In contrast, the United Arab Emirates—having absorbed the strike and continued its course without descending into escalation—remains a model of what it means for politics to be action, not rhetoric.

At this point, the question is no longer who pulls the trigger, but who possesses a truth that endures… and who fires merely to delay the moment of collapse.

In the end, systems are not defeated when they run out of ammunition. They are defeated when they lose their meaning.