Within days of the United States and Israel launching a military campaign against Iran in late February, a network of websites began publishing a coordinated stream of articles arguing that Iranians were "already seeing in these strikes the possibility of liberation" and had "celebrated them." Other pieces described bombing Iran's Interior Ministry as an advancement for human rights, framed anti-war protesters as part of Chinese Communist Party-linked funding networks, and presented the killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei as the inevitable outcome of a conflict that Iran had started in 1979.
The campaign is being carried out by Clock Tower X LLC, a firm led by Brad Parscale, the former digital director of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and a campaign manager in 2020 who broke ground in use of data-driven political advertising at scale. According to federal filings, the company was hired last August by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs through an intermediary, the French public relations firm Havas Media, to carry out a nationwide messaging effort in the United States. The original contract allocated $6 million for the work, but it was expanded to $9 million in a December update.
