The Israeli-American strike against Iran’s ayatollahs ended much faster than expected. This is good news—ceasefires and peace have almost always proven to be far better solutions than war. But the news gets even better: day by day, it becomes clearer that this short war has indeed damaged, to some extent, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Still, it turns out this wasn’t just a short war—it was also a strange one: there were only winners, and no losers. At least on the propaganda front, all three warring parties have, over the past few days, crafted their own victorious narrative.

Iran claims the ceasefire came as a direct consequence of its strike on the largest American base in the region. It’s a classic peacock-style claim, puffed up far beyond the reality. The aim is to tell the Iranian people that the ayatollahs’ regime is strong enough to stand up to powerful armies and nations, forcing them to abandon war and make peace.

But when you put this delusional claim side by side with reality, you’ll see far more feathers than flesh—in the end, the propaganda peacock is reduced to a mere chicken leg. The strike on the Al Udeid airbase—the largest in the region—was more symbolic than strategic. In fact, reliable sources report that Iran had warned the Americans beforehand, allowing them to evacuate soldiers and military equipment in time.

Despite its obvious propagandistic nature, the ayatollahs' narrative seems to be working in their favor: it has sparked a wave of near-universal nationalism, strong enough to somewhat dampen the widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.

Israel has also released its own victorious narrative. To be fair, Israel may indeed be the actual winner of this war. After weakening Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian allies in the region over a two-year period, it carried out aerial strikes against Iran that damaged, at least partially, its nuclear infrastructure and killed a significant number of high-ranking military officials and scientists involved in uranium enrichment. And as the cherry on top, Netanyahu managed to draw the Americans into the operation.

Still, Israel’s narrative also contains more feathers than flesh—more propaganda than reality. The damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure isn’t as extensive as Tel Aviv claims. Moreover, Israel’s air defense systems didn’t live up to the myth long constructed around them. As a result of Iran’s missile attacks, Israel suffered considerable damage to its infrastructure and civilian casualties.

Nevertheless, the carefully crafted winner’s narrative coming out of Tel Aviv serves some very deliberate purposes. A war “won” in 12 days helps Israel retouch, to some extent, the humiliation of October 7th, when its military and intelligence services were caught off guard by Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis and abducted 250 more.

The moral and logistical support Israel received from France, the UK, and other Western nations during Iran’s air raids was used to deflect some of the international criticism of its inhumane treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The 12-day war also served as a distraction from Gaza’s atrocities. Over 100 Palestinian civilians were killed during that period near food distribution centers by Israeli forces, but media attention was focused on the skies—on rockets, jets, and drones.

The lightning-fast airstrikes by American bombers on three of Iran’s uranium-processing centers—followed by an immediate ceasefire accepted by both Iran and Israel—are being presented as a major foreign policy victory for President Trump. However, even this narrative is heavily loaded with propaganda and, in some segments, seriously distorts the truth.

“We have completely and totally destroyed Iran’s nuclear program,” declared Trump right after the strikes. But early reports from the Pentagon, U.S. intelligence services, and now European agencies suggest otherwise: Iran appears to have managed to relocate and thus save 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60%. If this reserve is further enriched to 90%, it would be enough to produce around 10 nuclear warheads.

Experts say the Iranian nuclear program has not been “completely and totally destroyed”—only delayed by about five months. Meanwhile, some political analysts warn that the American strikes may push Iran’s nuclear activity deeper underground, beyond the oversight of international experts, as has been the case until now. If this proves true, the strikes may have caused more harm than good.

Trump’s hyperbolic exaggeration of the bombing’s success is meant to partially compensate for broken campaign promises—to end the war in Ukraine in a single day, to bring peace to the Middle East, and so on. Naturally, the image of a spectacular victory also serves to divert American public attention from concerns that the ongoing trade war could end up hitting their own pockets.

If you take the statements of Khamenei, Netanyahu, and Trump at face value, it seems the 12-day war had only winners. But this mirage-like image recalls the words of the ancient Greek who said: the first casualty of every war is the truth.