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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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That is plausible. Still, what does Israel gain by loudly backing Pahlavi? Presumably, the Ayatollah regime would crack down as hard on "we want to install the Shah" as they do on "we want to install the Shah, who is btw best buddies with Israel".

Plus, there is a general value to not announcing your astroturfing campaigns because it will make people who claim that a campaign is taking place look like delusional paranoids. 'Actually, Mossad was pretty open about their social media campaign against the Mullah regime' is not an argument you would your critics for free.

Then there is the signaling aspect towards both Pahlavi and future allies. "Oops, we leaked this by mistake" is not something anyone is likely to buy from them. They can have great opsec if they want to have it.

One thing which might explain their behavior is that it might be much more expensive to run an operation with good deniability. But in a world where the Trump administration calls Good a 'Domestic Terrorist', e.g. where statements are made for the sake of the most gullible 5% of the population, one would expect that any threadbare denial would be beneficial.

Perhaps the calculation is that the regime is much more likely to kill its opponents if they believe they are Mossad agents. Opposing the Ayatollah will probably earn you a long prison sentence, but being paid by Mossad will reliably get you executed. So telegraphing "btw, the protests are our doing and all the protesters are our agents", they are egging on the regime to kill them in large numbers, which will in turn force Trump to act, as you observed.