Why Iran’s Lego Clips Are Anything but ‘Stupid’

Iran’s Lego Clips Are Anything but ‘Stupid’

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Argument:

Why Iran’s Lego Clips Are Anything but ‘Stupid’

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Argument

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Why Iran’s Lego Clips Are Anything but ‘Stupid’

Marco Rubio should not dismiss this new and highly effective form of propaganda.

By **Mohamed Elgohari**, an affiliate faculty member at George Mason University and the founder of Bulletin From the Shadows, a monthly analysis of jihadi and militant propaganda.

!Three side-by-side Lego-style scenes depicting caricatured minifigures.

*Three side-by-side Lego-style scenes depicting caricatured minifigures.*

Images from the “AI Iran” YouTube channel depict Lego versions of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. President Donald Trump, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, captured on Sept. 18. Iran AI via YouTube

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September 21, 2026, 1:25 AM

While answering a question in July about the prospects for negotiations with Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a dismissive reference to an ongoing series of AI-generated Lego animation clips produced in Iran that mock U.S. and Israeli officials. Iran will be ready to do a deal soon, Rubio suggested, because “the price they are paying is very high, despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out.” Rubio, speaking to reporters at a foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila, hadn’t even been asked about the propaganda campaign. That a sitting U.S. secretary of state felt compelled to address a cartoon campaign produced by a small group of individuals at an international security forum is itself revealing.

Iran War

Analysis and news.

The first of these videos to go viral appeared online in March. Most viewers assumed it was a joke. A Lego-figurine Donald Trump jolts awake in the Oval Office as Iranian missiles rain down on a U.S. warship. Within days, it had been viewed millions of times. The video was produced by a group called Akhbar Enfejari (“Explosive News”), a small outlet operating from inside Iran reportedly with a team of roughly 10, using consumer-grade hardware. Over the following months, the group released more than a hundred videos, distributed across X, YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram, along with audio tracks on Spotify. YouTube suspended the group’s channel in April. The content kept circulating anyway.

While answering a question in July about the prospects for negotiations with Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a dismissive reference to an ongoing series of AI-generated Lego animation clips produced in Iran that mock U.S. and Israeli officials. Iran will be ready to do a deal soon, Rubio suggested, because “the price they are paying is very high, despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out.” Rubio, speaking to reporters at a foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila, hadn’t even been asked about the propaganda campaign. That a sitting U.S. secretary of state felt compelled to address a cartoon campaign produced by a small group of individuals at an international security forum is itself revealing.

Iran War

Analysis and news.

The first of these videos to go viral appeared online in March. Most viewers assumed it was a joke. A Lego-figurine Donald Trump jolts awake in the Oval Office as Iranian missiles rain down on a U.S. warship. Within days, it had been viewed millions of times. The video was produced by a group called Akhbar Enfejari (“Explosive News”), a small outlet operating from inside Iran reportedly with a team of roughly 10, using consumer-grade hardware. Over the following months, the group released more than a hundred videos, distributed across X, YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram, along with audio tracks on Spotify. YouTube suspended the group’s channel in April. The content kept circulating anyway.

The standard response would be to treat Akhbar Enfejari as an oddity, more prank than policy threat. That is a mistake. The campaign is proof of concept for a new operational model of propaganda, one that generative AI has made possible. States have long sought to mobilize supporters and attack adversaries. What generative AI changes is the organizational threshold. It reduces the size and composition of the staff needed to create this content—you do not need separate teams of writers, translators, graphic designers, animators, or distributions staff. These tasks can be done by a very small team, like Akhbar Enfejari’s. It also reduces the amount of time needed to produce content. Polished content can be created in a few hours. Finally, generative AI does not require staff to have sophisticated technical skills.

Crucially, generative AI also creates the ability to produce multiple and different streams of influences at once. One small team—in this case, Akhbar Enfejari—rapidly produces culturally distinct messages for two different audiences at a speed and volume that once required a much larger organizational scale and resources. English-language satire circulates among audience resistant to Iranian messaging—the “stupid Lego videos”—while Persian-language videos reinforce Iran’s civilizational continuity, frame attacks on Lebanese civilians as a shared struggle, and generally reinforce solidarity among audiences already receptive to Iran’s ideological and religious vocabulary.

The English-language Lego-style videos, by contrast,