Dictators despise hard facts that threaten their grip on political power. So they — and their loyalists, who wish to stay alive — concoct and repeat lies that conceal the dictatorship's flaws and, especially when the regime is threatened, disguise its weaknesses and failures.

I think the remnant ayatollah regime is betting very bold lies, complemented and amplified by the Western media's addiction to histrionic headlines and U.S. 2026 election turmoil, will buy it time. Buy it time to see if it can cling to power in Iran and maintain its Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi proxy forces.

Bold lies can obscure the truth — for a while.

In "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler asserted people eventually accept big lies as truth because they don't want to believe someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." That line may be the source of the dictator's maxim "Tell the Big Lie and tell it often," which is usually attributed to Josef Goebbels, the Third Reich's propaganda minister.

However, vicious gobbledygook eventually confronts reality, though often accompanied by immense pain and suffering. The Nazis started and lost World War II. After 70 years, the Soviet Union's police state folded because communism produces dreadful, systemic poverty.

On occasion, bald liars are quickly exposed. In 2003, as U.S. Army tanks took control of the square below his broadcast studio, Saddam's No. 1 video propagandist Baghdad Bob (Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf) proclaimed America's bloody defeat. He reported: "I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they (Americans) have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad."

No, Bob. Totally wrong.

The Tehran regime's bold and insistent claim that it controls the strait of Hormuz is a big-time fib, but one U.S. and European media endlessly echo.

The regime knows (sans nukes) the strait is its only global leverage. A verbal threat can spike maritime insurance rates.

Alas, the U.S. and Arab Gulf states have overwhelming air and sea firepower in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. They control movement through the strait. I can make a case the U.S. has controlled the strait since early March.

The American and Israeli "standoff" military onslaught destroyed Iran's air and missile defenses, sank its navy, obliterated its nuclear weapons facilities, killed two echelons of political and security leaders, wrecked key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control centers, destroyed or suppressed Iranian missile and naval facilities around the Strait of Hormuz, eliminated 90% of Iran's mobile ballistic missile launchers and severely damaged Iran's domestic ballistic missile production capabilities.

David's sling was a "standoff" weapon that killed Goliath. Today, missiles, bombs, drones and long-range artillery function as standoff weapons.

Why standoff weapons? The U.S. didn't want to put boots on the ground — and doesn't need to do so to achieve its military and political goals.

Yes, a fanatic Iranian regime faction can strike an oil supertanker with a drone or anti-ship missile. Presto, flaming video goes global. The fanatics will claim victory. Hysterics will agree.

The fanatics and the hysterics are wrong. Striking a tanker will kick off another two weeks of standoff destruction. This time, the Trump administration may do something it has studiously avoided: target Iran's civilian electrical grid, water distribution and transportation systems.

That would leave the remnant regime with a very local mess.

Hence the alternative. If the regime behaves and sticks to the memorandum of understanding, the regime might get some money instead of further expensive and painful destruction — destruction that is fact, not fiction. This is a huge difference between the Trump administration's MOU process and the Obama administration's Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, which was a fraud that gave the ayatollahs money to build nukes.

The MOU commits the regime to engage in 60 days of discussions with the U.S. Frank discussions, not bluster. Regime-directed violence will be penalized. Failure to permit nuclear weapons-related inspections will be severely penalized.

Good behavior — if verified — will be rewarded with economic benefits, such as money from Iranian oil exports. Interesting possibilities abound. The Trump administration has indicated the U.S. may let the regime purchase American agricultural products with frozen financial assets. Washington would control regime spending — money purchasing food for the Iranian people, not ballistic missiles and rockets for Hezbollah.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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