In a story that reads more like a dark comedy than real news, The New York Times recently highlighted how a completely fabricated quote about Iran’s nuclear ambitions managed to fool leaders in both Israel and the United States — all within a single day.
It all started on the morning of August 5th, when a random India-based X account with a history of posting anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim content dropped what looked like an explosive scoop. The account claimed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander, Ahmad Vahidi, had vowed that Iran would never abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions as long as Israel and the US had nukes. To make it look legit, they slapped together an AI-generated image mixing Vahidi’s face with a cartoon mushroom cloud.
Two hours later, another Indian X account pushed out the same quote — this time translated into Hindi.
Here’s the kicker: none of it was true. There’s zero evidence Vahidi ever said anything remotely close to that, and Iran hasn’t even developed a nuclear weapon. But that didn’t stop the lie from spreading like wildfire.
Before long, the quote showed up on “Mossad Commentary,” a well-known pro-Israel X account. The account’s operator, Israeli entrepreneur Gedaliah Blum, used the fake quote to slam Trump’s push for renewed US-Iran peace talks, suggesting he was letting Iran get away with building bombs.
The fake quote and AI-generated image that started it all
From there, things spiraled fast. Israeli news site Ynet picked it up as a legitimate story, then Channel 14 ran with it, claiming this was Iran’s first official admission of building a nuclear bomb. Even Netanyahu’s son Yair got in on the action, citing the quote during a radio appearance.
That very evening, Prime Minister Netanyahu himself repeated the claim during a speech at Mount Herzl, Israel’s national cemetery. Talk about a bad case of not fact-checking your sources.
Across the pond, the lie kept gaining momentum. Mike Waltz, Trump’s former UN ambassador, shared it. Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott did too. Fox News picked it up, and during an interview with former US Central Command chief General Joseph L. Votel, anchor Bill Hemmer read the quote aloud, saying, “That’s the closest thing to an admission we’ve heard.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei eventually slammed the post, calling it “one of the many lies directed at the Islamic Republic.” He pointed out that these bomb-related accusations were the same tired fabrications used for two decades to justify military aggression.
As for Vahidi himself — he took over as Revolutionary Guard commander back in March after the war broke out. He’s spoken publicly about the conflict, but never once about Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, after last year’s 12-day war with Israel, he told state media that while Iran would do “things it has never done before” to defend itself, the country’s stance on nukes had already been “clearly stated.”
Unsurprisingly, once the story fell apart, Waltz quietly deleted his tweet. No explanation. Fox News also issued a correction, admitting the quote was “unverified and inaccurate.”
Darren L. Linvill from Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub called this whole episode a textbook case of “narrative laundering” — a tactic where propagandists seed a lie, then push it through enough channels to make it look authentic.
“It was a simple influence campaign,” he said. “But simple campaigns can still be highly effective — and this one certainly seems to have been worth the effort.”
