False Nuclear Alerts in Russia and Ukraine Fuel Iran Attack Narrative

False nuclear alerts and AWACS: the narrative that anticipates an attack

In November, just hours after it emerged that false nuclear attack alerts had been sent through emergency apps in Russia and Ukraine, talk of a possible nuclear attack on Iran has stopped being a late-night rumor. The hacked messages, sent just hours apart, mimicked the pattern of a real crisis: first a notification, then a headline, then silence from the authorities. According to those trinc it, the sequence recalls the first week of the pandemic. And against that backdrop, an uncomfortable question: is it a rehearsal or the prelude to something worse?

The trigger was not an official report, but a chain of tweets and statements that have been building on each other. Tucker Carlson claimed the Trump administration could be days away from launching a nuclear attack on Iran, with the Pickax mountain as the target. Alex Jones, ever in character, elevated it to "the biggest story of his 32-year career." And from the opposite flank, former CIA agent John Kiriakou warned on Piers Morgan Uncensored that close contacts had confirmed to him that Washington was studying the use of atomic weapons. These are not independent sources, but they agree on the scenario.

The mountain that can only be destroyed with a nuclear weapon

The technical argument circulating has its own logic. Iran's nuclear program would be buried under a mountain, some 300 meters deep, in a complex that could only be collapsed with tactical nuclear weapons. The idea, as explained in an audio analysis cited in the conversation, would be to collapse the structure to destroy what is inside and prevent radiation from reaching the surface. It is the same logic applied in debates over Saddam Hussein's bunkers, but with a qualitative leap: here there is no talk of conventional bombs.

The military deployment points in the same direction. Four AWACS —early warning aircraft— are operating in Saudi Arabia, according to a message that has been repeated insistently. For some, that leaves no room for doubt: the question is not whether the United States will attack, but when. For others, it is simply a sign of routine surveillance in a hot region. The difference between the two readings is the difference between a headline and a war.

Kerosene, budget airlines and the 90-day plan

There is one detail that has gone largely unnoticed: kerosene. According to a circulating account, this fuel would have been given top priority, at the cost of reducing gasoline and diesel production, with the aim of draining national reserves. It is not an official source, but it fits with the logistics preparation described in the Pentagon's 90-day survival plan, leaked by America Reports: a global war scenario that would leave military bases without supplies and cut supply chains. The question hanging in the air is uncomfortable: why prepare a 90-day plan if no prolonged crisis is expected?

Meanwhile, life goes on. And that is the contrast: the budget airlines, the very ones that depend on kerosene to fly, have announced neither cuts nor price increases. The price of oil has not spiked. The market, which usually anticipates events, does not appear to be pricing in a nuclear war. It is the strongest argument of those who maintain that all this is smoke.

The precedent of the false alerts: rehearsal or warning?

The sending of false nuclear attack alerts in Russia and Ukraine is not an isolated event. It peine hours before Carlson's and Jones's statements became known, and some have interpreted it as a test of the population's capacity to react. The comparison with the first week of elbichito is inevitable: a few alerts, a few headlines, and nobody called it a crisis. Until it was. The difference is that here there is no bicho, but a political decision.

The reaction from the MAGA circle was immediate. Mélenchon, from France, warned of a "machine without limits" that would only benefit Netanyahu and Trump. In Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei has granted the government powers to negotiate an end to the war with the United States, according to a story that went almost unnoticed. If Iran wants to negotiate, why prepare a nuclear attack? The answer may lie in the fact that the attack is not aimed at destroying a program, but at changing a regime.

The timeline nobody believes

The conversation has a streak of dark humor that should not be ignored. "Nothing is going to happen," sums up one person. "Until next October," notes another, recalling that all apocalyptic predictions have their date and their revision. The recurring joke is that the attack will come "in 72 hours, as usual." It is how people cope with antiestéticar: turning it into a joke. But beneath the joke lies a real question: what if this time it is not a joke?

The ending is not an ending. It is the exact point where the analysis gets stuck: the AWACS are there, the false alerts have been sent, the 90-day plan exists. And nobody has denied anything. The only certainty is that kerosene has not gone up. Yet.