The danger of leaders who exhibit knowingness

In which I introduce my corollary to the Big Lie theory: Keep repeating a big mistaken belief enough, and the people will come to believe it

The war between Israel and Iran ended almost as abruptly as it began. The announcement of the conclusion of hostilities came in the most unusual way, too, via a social media post by President Trump. But there is little relief in Israel: the war in Gaza drags on as Hamas still holds approximately 20 hostages who are suffering life-in-hell and another 30 bodies. Just this week, another seven soldiers were killed in Gaza while dozens of Palestinians were killed just trying to obtain humanitarian aid.

As a conflict management scholar, I am aware that cease-fires are routinely violated. In theory, the less time spent in crafting the cease-fire, the more likely it is to fall apart, so this one should have little chance of survival. However, we are not in normal times and the relationships between the primary characters aren’t typical. It appears both Israel and Iran are committed for the moment.

Regarding Israel, it seems that Netanyahu owes Trump a big favor for bombing the Fordo nuclear complex, which posed the greatest existential threat to Israel in his eyes. Israel clearly had more targets to bomb, yet Trump told him to turn the planes around, and Netanyahu complied. The bludgeoned Khamenei regime survived. Khameinei could claim he had defended Iran’s honor by having the last word with a strike against U.S. targets in Qatar and a deadly volley of missiles against Israel without eliciting massive retaliation.

All three summed up the war with grandiose statements, lauding the use of force. President Trump declared that “the nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!” Netanyahu proclaimed, “We struck a decisive blow to the ayatollah regime.” Meanwhile, Khamenei asserted, “The Islamic republic won, and in retaliation dealt a severe slap to the face of America.”

Radio Moscow or Voice of America

So, who to believe, who to trust? I say none of them, and I’ll tell you why by sharing some anecdotes that explain why I think what I think.

When I was 15, my dad had a sabbatical at a Dutch university, so he and my mom took me to live in The Netherlands for a year. I was already a news junkie back then. I spent the year listening to Radio Moscow, the USSR’s propaganda outlet to the West, the Voice of America – the U.S. mouthpiece in Europe – and the BBC.

Listening to Radio Moscow was simultaneously laughable, infuriating and frustrating. Laughable because of the ridiculous claims they made about how much life was better behind the Iron Curtain than in America. Infuriating and frustrating because I couldn’t understand how the readers could keep a straight face. To be fair, there was a kernel of truth to many reports – like ones that covered poverty, violence and racism in the United States. The problem wasn’t necessarily the facts, but the bending of facts to match their desired reality or the presentation of alternative ones. Radio Moscow would draw sweeping conclusions based on unsubstantiated claims and twisting or ignoring facts.

In contrast, the Voice of America felt objective because it was nuanced and at times even self-critical. It didn’t cover up all the warts (though arguably some). Its reports coming from the West could be verified. Reports about the rot behind the Iron Curtain were based on sources that I presumed were credible, though I admittedly couldn’t know. But, the balanced reporting added an aura of credibility that Radio Moscow lacked. The BBC felt similar. I listened to it so much that 42 years later I can still hear “Lilliburlero”, the tune it played every hour on the hour before Big Ben would chime the time.

Was I blinded by my pro-Western bias? Well, fast forward a decade and I saw an interview with a former Soviet official who had worked for its propaganda machine. He freely admitted that Radio Moscow had unabashedly lied, telling only the story it wanted the West to believe. And the Voice of America aka VOA? Yeah, they were basically telling the truth when they reported on news behind the Iron Curtain.

Ever since then, when I have listened to political leaders, I have asked myself at times: who do they sound like, Radio Moscow or VOA? So, when I hear Trump, Netanyahu and Khamenei, what do I hear? To my ears, they all sound like Radio Moscow. They do what Radio Moscow did: make grandiose statements, present themselves as the saviors of their people and disparage any alternative interpretation of reality.

Take Trump. “Completely destroyed”? Early assessments indicate that Iran’s nuclear facilities were badly damaged but not obliterated. The program was set back years, but the Iranians may be able to restart it. Not only that, but the Americans also lost track of the enriched uranium, which the Iranians apparently extracted from the target sites before they were bombed. Trump downplayed his own intelligence analysts who have contradicted his version of events.

Then there’s Netanyahu. “Decisive blow”? His boasting reminds me of what he said at the end of the 2021 war with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, when he confidently told his viewers: “I received reviews of our many attacks against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They received blows they did not expect, and I have no doubt that we took them back many years.” If by “many years” he meant two years until the worst massacre in Israeli history, then we should all be worried.

That Khameinei, the absolute ruler of an oppressive regime, should be untrustworthy goes without saying. His regime has been proclaiming victories and issuing empty threats throughout the entire conflict. His victory declaration is laughable.

‘Knowing the answers even before the question arises’

Now I understand well enough that the rhetoric of two democratic leaders is generally incomparable to that of a dictator. However, what the three share in common is that they all demonstrate qualities of knowingness, a term coined by philosopher and psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear, who described it as “a posture of always ‘already knowing’, of purporting to know the answers even before the question arises.” The danger of knowingness is that it is liable to lead people to make assertions, which they themselves may believe, that are as erroneous as the lies Radio Moscow’s readers deliberately peddled. And it can be even more perilous in a democracy where elected leaders enjoy the trust of their citizens that their despotic colleagues don’t.

Radio Moscow’s operators likely bought into the “big lie” theory attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” But that theory is contingent on people having motivated reasons to believe the big lie in the first place, if it gives them meaning in life, makes them feel part of something greater and it feels truthful. That’s because humans are social beings who have a natural bent toward tribalism. In the case of Radio Moscow, it failed because its propaganda didn’t meet those criteria. That’s why listeners behind the Iron Curtain trusted Voice of America and the BBC more.

I don’t mean to accuse populist leaders like Netanyahu and Trump of deliberately spreading lies. However, I do suspect a similar mechanism is in play, which I call my “big mistaken belief” corollary. It applies to leaders suffering from knowingness: Keep repeating a big mistaken belief enough, and the people will come to believe it. For leaders, repeating the mistaken belief becomes such a part of their identity that they resist changing it in the face of disconfirming evidence.

Both Netanyahu and Trump have been repeating their absolute beliefs for years, if not decades. Netanyahu has been warning that Iran was years, months or weeks away for decades. The only thing that has changed has been the time frame: Iran might have the bomb by 1999, 2002, 2007… you get the picture. He has been saying it in public and from the prime minister’s pulpit for so long that it feels like conventional wisdom. His truth has left no space for an alternate interpretation of Iran’s behavior over the years.

But what if he’s wrong? What if he impersonates the Voice of America but really is Radio Moscow, so convincingly so that even he doesn’t realize it? What if Iran’s belligerency and rhetoric are primarily geared for regime preservation, not war? What if Netanyahu’s fears have created our reality? That would mean we have sleepwalked into a war that never had to happen.

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was an attempt to avoid this scenario, but Trump’s 2018 exit from the deal closed that avenue and paved the way for the 12-day war that just was. Speaking of Trump, how did he know bombing Fordo was the right thing to do? How did he know restraining Netanyahu was also the right thing to do? Perhaps he should have let Israel finish the job at that point? After all, knowingness can work both ways, leading to irresponsible action or irresponsible inaction.

In times when our leaders express such confidence that there is no room for questioning their truths, it is more important than ever to critically question their assumptions. I’m skeptical of leaders who remind me of Radio Moscow, especially the one who shut down the Voice of America. When harm is on the line, the price of being lulled to sleep is deadly. For Israel, the cost of this war was nearly 30 lives, 2,400 wounded, and untold financial and psychological damage. Moreover, hostages are still suffering in Gaza, while Israel continues to lose soldiers in a war that has no clear direction and no diplomatic horizon. We need to push back against knowingness if we want to avoid sleepwalking into the next deadly conflict.

Satellite imagery of Iran’s Fordo nuclear complex after the U.S. bombed it. Evidence suggests the Iranian removed enriched uranium from it before it was destroyed. Trump insists no enriched uranium was removed. What if he’s wrong?