Information Grade

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” – Jacques Ellul Just hours after the outbreak of war in Iran, we made a deliberate decision to plug into as much foreign propaganda as possible. We repurposed the all-powerful Twitter/X algorithm to identify a new list of high-signal/low-noise accounts with a pro-Iranian bent. Using a technique previously described here, we supplemented our standard approach to information-gathering with this new feed. In doing so, we were able to draw conclusions about the war’s arc days before they surfaced in legacy Western media outlets. Take the fate of the US military bases sprinkled around the Middle East, presumably built at least in part for an inevitable clash with Iran. During the first week of hostilities, our new feed was replete with shocking footage and satellite imagery that strongly indicated Iran had inflicted massive damage on these bases, far more than the Pentagon was admitting. Much of it seemed “leaked” from Chinese sources, having found its way to Twitter/X via popular Chinese social media outlets, and was mostly confirmed by Western-based satellite providers, at least before the Pentagon demanded they stop publishing it. Because this material so mismatched what US and Israeli military leaders were reporting, we filed the information as a loose axiom in a developing mental model: Iran was outperforming expectations, a quick and decisive defeat of that country was not in the cards, and no amount of jawboning would alter events on the ground. Although, in many cases, it took several weeks, traditional news organizations slowly began to confirm what by then had become old news to us, culminating in this remarkable investigation by The Washington Post, published Wednesday: “Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at US military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the US government or previously reported. The threat of air attacks rendered some of the US bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire at the start of the war, officials have said.” This affair drives the importance of not only casting a wide net for inbound information but also having a disciplined process to grade it for veracity. The Washington Post has historically printed many stories we find dubious, but this one revealed sources and methods beyond the standard “people familiar with the matter” trope, adding to its credibility. In other words, it rang true under our own internally developed mosaic. On May 2, potentially momentous news broke out of China that, if verified, might mark the beginning of the end of US dollar hegemony, the durable rise of a multipolar world, and an even greater role for gold in geopolitics and international trade. We speak, of course, of the ongoing sanctions war between the US and the other great powers, and China’s possible decision to draw a line in the sand and defy Washington in a way it has not yet been willing to do. We say “possible” because, almost immediately after the news broke, efforts were made to downplay it, putting us in a strikingly similar position to that first week of the war: We are pretty sure something incredibly important is happening, but we are getting strongly mixed signals on the matter. With US President Trump allegedly traveling to Beijing soon for what may be a historic summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, making sense of the conflicting headlines has never been more urgent. Let’s work through the evidence together, ponder the consequences, and get ready for the big show ahead.