One of the clearest examples came on March 10, when Police Commander Ahmad-Reza Radan addressed the possibility of protests during the conflict.
Speaking on state television, he warned that anyone who took to the streets “at the will of the enemy” would no longer be treated as a protester but as an “enemy combatant.”
The wording marked a significant escalation. By invoking the language of combat, the state effectively framed domestic dissent as participation in the war itself.
Such framing has appeared repeatedly in recent broadcasts. Commentators and officials frequently describe protests not as political grievances but as extensions of foreign military pressure.
The same rhetorical shift is evident in the way foreign adversaries are described. Television hosts increasingly employ dehumanizing metaphors to portray Western and Israeli leaders.
Israeli officials have been repeatedly referred to as “rabid dogs” on talk shows, imagery that casts them as biological threats rather than political opponents.
Foreign-based Persian-language media outlets are portrayed in similarly extreme terms. Iran International TV, for example, has been described on state television as a “satanic network,” while presenters have warned that its regional offices could be considered legitimate targets.
The tone is often even more unrestrained online, where state television presenters engage in public taunts and insults with Israeli officials and journalists on social media.
The language echoes wartime propaganda seen in many conflicts, where demonization of the enemy is used to mobilize domestic support. But the Iranian broadcasts go further by combining this rhetoric with arguments that dismiss international norms governing warfare.
On several television panel discussions in March, state-aligned analysts suggested that international humanitarian law and institutions such as the United Nations serve merely as tools of Western power.
Some commentators declared bluntly that “the age of diplomacy is dead” and that the West understands only “the language of missiles.”
In this atmosphere, messaging increasingly serves not only to condemn foreign adversaries but also to warn domestic audiences about the consequences of dissent.
When protests are described as actions carried out “at the will of the enemy,” the implication is that political opposition itself becomes a form of collaboration with hostile powers.
Wars have always reshaped political language. Governments under military pressure tend to simplify narratives, divide the world into allies and enemies, and suppress ambiguity. Iran’s state television now appears to be moving decisively in that direction.
When state television begins speaking about its own citizens in the language of the battlefield, it signals that the war is no longer being presented as something happening only beyond the country’s borders.
