Foreign Policy as Kayfabe

The article argues recent Iran war talk and even strikes operate like professional wrestling: scripted, role‑driven, and aimed at TV optics rather than coherent strategy. Elites perform (charts, moral panics, biblical appeals) while expecting audiences to 'buy the angle,' but internet publics increasingly answer with ridicule instead of fear. Leaders conditioned by television can misread this shift and pursue performative action that backfires. — Seeing conflict narratives as staged spectacle changes how we judge legitimacy, media influence, and the likelihood that performative moves substitute for strategy.