@MaxBlumenthal
“The Strait of Hormuz was fully open before the US mafia Don embarked on a campaign of state terror in a bid to become Israel’s employee of the month https://t.co/iQAwFEQ2Xt”
Causal Inversion
How They Deceive You
Propaganda
The tweet fabricates a causal narrative by inverting responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz closure, portraying US strikes as unprovoked terror while omitting Iran's retaliatory blockade and prior provocations.
Main Device
Causal Inversion
It deceptively flips agency to blame Trump's 'campaign of state terror' for the Strait closure, erasing Iran's explicit retaliation to US-Israel strikes on its nuclear and military sites.
Archetype
Far-left anti-Israel activist
Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, consistently promotes anti-Trump, anti-US imperialist, and pro-adversarial regime narratives with strong biases against Israel.
Max is peddling straight-up propaganda by flipping the entire story on who closed the Strait of Hormuz—blaming Trump's "campaign of state terror" like the US just randomly terrorized Iran out of nowhere to win "Israel’s employee of the month" award. That's causal inversion at its sleaziest: the Strait was open before US-Israel strikes on February 27-28, 2026, targeted Iran's nuclear facilities, missile sites, oil infrastructure, and even Supreme Leader Khamenei himself. Those strikes came after nuclear diplomacy collapsed and Iran ramped up its weapons program with proxy attacks—not some unprovoked "mafia Don" rampage. Iran's Revolutionary Guards explicitly announced the blockade in retaliation right after, as BBC, NYT, and CNBC all reported in March 2026. Max erases that to make it sound like the US sparked everything from a peaceful baseline, cherry-picking the timeline to ignore Iran's decades of Strait threats since the 1980s (EIA records), including 2019 tanker harassment, and recent nuclear provocations (CFR details). The loaded slurs—"US mafia Don," "state terror"—aren't analysis; they're emotional gut-punches from a guy like Max Blumenthal, Grayzone editor with a track record of RT/Sputnik ties, anti-Israel books like *Goliath*, and framing the West as the eternal villain while giving passes to Iran. Neutral take? Strait flowed fine pre-strikes on real threats; Iran slammed it shut post-strikes. This tweet manipulates you into buying the inversion—don't.
Writer's Worldview
“US as Israel's terrorist enforcer”
Far-left anti-Israel activist
7 findings · 3 omissions · 4 sources compared
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