Embassy Cables Detail How Iran War Is Hurting The Us Abroad

The Iran war is risking America’s global security ties and damaging its reputation, especially among the world’s Muslims, according to a set of State Department cables obtained by POLITICO.

The cables, dated Wednesday, described the fallout of the war for America’s standing in three countries in different parts of the world: Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Indonesia.

U.S. diplomats at embassies in the countries’ capitals painted damning portraits of an America under siege in multiple media spheres by pro-Iranian actors that are exceptionally agile in the digital space.

In Azerbaijan, what had been a significantly improving relationship has hit a plateau at best, and appears to be faltering. Bahrain’s government is facing questions about whether the U.S. abandoned it to fend for itself against Iranian drones and missiles. And Indonesia’s leader could face growing calls to reduce security ties with the U.S.

Some of the cables describe anti-U.S. sentiment that is having an immediate impact, while others raise concerns that relationships could be in danger if the war continues much longer. Taken together, the cables paint a picture of countries where the U.S. is losing the population’s trust, and potentially that of their governments.

The cables carry veiled requests for the Trump administration to free up American embassies to fight such negative narratives online and in traditional media.

Embassies need to “have the freedom for flexible, quick and proactive social media to meet the challenge of making an impact in an overcrowded digital space,” argues the embassy cable from Jakarta, Indonesia.

U.S. embassies have been instructed not to create original content about the Iran war to share publicly and instead are largely limited to reposting approved messaging from the White House or the State Department headquarters online, according to a U.S. diplomat and other documents obtained by POLITICO.

The fact that the cables were sent at all suggests the situation in the countries is increasingly dire. That’s because many U.S. diplomats have become afraid to speak up under the Trump administration after it largely sidelined them from key foreign policy decisions, fired numerous members of the Foreign Service and emphasized “fidelity” for those left, two U.S. diplomats said.

As a result, “posts are being very careful in selecting their topics and how they phrase things,” one of the diplomats said, having been granted anonymity like the other because they feared retribution.

Iran’s Islamist leadership, by contrast, is using bots, memes and other tools on a vast array of platforms to undermine the U.S. in the media space. Its diplomats have also been turning to their contacts in religious, cultural and social spheres to build sympathy for Tehran.

Asked for comment, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said: “President Trump’s actions are making the United States, future generations, and the entire world safer by preventing the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That’s the reality, and the entire administration is lockstep in that effort.”

Questioning U.S. loyalty in Bahrain

Bahrain and the U.S. are stalwart allies, and the Middle Eastern country hosts an American military base that serves as headquarters for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

But the Iran war has led to public perceptions that the U.S. abandoned Bahrain to focus on protecting Israel instead, according to the cable from the Bahraini capital, Manama.

Some pro-Iran social media accounts suggested that the U.S. military presence “had turned Bahrain into a target” and that U.S. forces should leave the country, the cable says.

“One widely circulated tweet asked, ‘Why are U.S. forces being placed in hotels among civilians? Does America, which has abandoned the Gulf for Israel’s security and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s objectives, deserve for you to put the Bahraini people at risk?’” according to the cable.

Part of the problem, U.S. diplomats writing the cable suggest, is that America’s messaging during the Iran war has been weak, while the pro-Iran social media and other messaging tools have moved quickly and often creatively.

Bahraini officials and other contacts “tell us they worry that, in the absence of regular, local U.S. messaging, these misperceptions — amplified by Iranian propaganda and incomplete reporting in both local and international media — risk eroding public confidence in the U.S. commitment to Bahrain’s security,” the cable states.

It didn’t help that traditional Bahraini media — “whose reporting is heavily controlled by the government” — focused much more on what the Bahraini military did to intercept Iranian drones and missiles “while omitting mention of U.S. support.” Official Bahraini government statements also didn’t acknowledge the equipment and training the U.S. had given the country’s armed forces, the cable states.

Still, the cable also notes that such Bahraini neglect to mention the U.S. may have partly stemmed from a “desire to protect and maintain the operational security of U.S. personnel and materiel.”

While the cable never directly says the embassy itself failed on messaging, it points out that the British Embassy’s highly active social media presence “created a distorted perception of the scale of British assistance and an impression that the U.K. was stepping up where the United States was retreating.”

Bahrain’s ambassador in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did spokespeople for the British Embassy in Washington.

Undermining gains in Azerbaijan

The Iran war may be damaging progress the U.S. has made in its relationship with Azerbaijan since Trump oversaw a peace summit between Azerbaijan and Armenia last August, according to a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital.

After that summit, Azerbaijani media, which is heavily dominated by pro-government outlets, began giving more positive coverage to the United States. There also were signs of growing pro-U.S. sentiment in the majority-Muslim Azerbaijani population.

In the first month after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Azerbaijani media kept a largely neutral tone, mirroring the government position. An alleged Iranian drone strike on Azerbaijan on March 5 even briefly led to furious nationalist commentary accusing Iran of terrorism.

But in April, the Azerbaijani media turned more critical of the U.S.

“Most local outlets blamed the United States and Israel for starting the conflict and for allegedly lacking a clear strategy or goal to end it,” the cable says. Some Azerbaijani press reprinted international news stories this month that include criticisms of Trump and his family. Such reprinting, the cable notes, is often a “test balloon” by the government before it starts directly using similar language.

The recent ceasefire in the Iran war has helped cool tensions somewhat, with the Azerbaijani media coverage shifting to “technocratic but still critical analyses of the agreement, and to speculation of U.S., Israeli, and Iranian political calculations.” The truce, which expires April 22, has led many Azerbaijanis to “hope this would spell the end of the conflict, amid rising prices and regional travel disruptions.”

The cable notes that although the majority of social media commenters in Azerbaijan have been deeply critical of U.S. and Israeli actions, such sentiments don’t appear to have led to more pro-Iranian feelings in Azerbaijan. Much of the Azerbaijani public is secular-minded and disdainful of the Islamist regime in Tehran, the cable states.

Azerbaijan government officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Losing ground with Muslims in Indonesia

Iran is mounting a major influence operation in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, according to the cable from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.

On traditional media and platforms such as Telegram and Facebook, Tehran is stressing Muslim solidarity while appealing to anti-colonial sentiment in Indonesia by casting Israel and the U.S. as imperialists. The Iranian efforts are often creative; some use Morse code to convey a pro-Iran message, encouraging user interaction, the cable states.

The Iranian Embassy’s posts “now generate thousands more views, positive comments, and pick-ups from local media” than before, while the Iranian ambassador has upped his public engagement, including meeting with many Indonesian political and religious “elites.”

The Jakarta cable argued that if the war drags on and anti-U.S. sentiment grows, it would put cooperation between the two countries at risk.

For the U.S., “the most dangerous near-term risk is not that Iranian messaging will be believed wholesale, but that it will amplify existing anti-American sentiment to a degree that constrains President Prabowo’s political room to continue to maneuver on regional security cooperation,” the cable states.

Indonesia has made a number of security-related moves to gain favor with President Donald Trump, including offering to send troops to help with security in Gaza and joining Trump’s Board of Peace. On Monday, the government of Prabowo Subianto signed onto a “major defense cooperation partnership” with the U.S.

The cable points out that, since the start of the war, the Iranian ambassador has called on Indonesia to quit the Board of Peace. There’s no indication the Indonesian government is prepared to go that far, although it reportedly has put a pause on discussions with the U.S. related to the board.

The embassy carefully argues for more freedom to fight back on the media front.

“Post welcomes additional public diplomacy initiatives that promote U.S. policy in the Middle East and counter anti-American messaging to engage Muslim-majority audiences in the current environment,” the cable says.

Indonesian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.