Axis Week in Brief
A weekly synthesis of coordinated authoritarian information operations across select Iran-led Axis (Hezbollah & Houthis) and aligned state media (Russia & China). Coverage Period: February 3-9, 2026
Iran ran diplomacy and deterrence as parallel tracks through the Muscat channel, negotiating with Washington while Kayhan threatened to close Hormuz and Tasnim amplified an anime depicting U.S. naval assets destroyed in the Persian Gulf. Russia used the New START expiration to position itself as the responsible party in a post-treaty world it helped create. The Epstein files produced the most synchronized cross-ecosystem narrative operation this monitoring period has recorded. And the Houthis framed the return of the world's largest shipping alliance to the Red Sea as transit permitted by Sana'a, not secured by navies. The same week, Sisi declared that Red Sea security is the exclusive responsibility of the countries bordering it.
Week in Brief
The week was dominated by the Muscat channel for Iran–U.S. nuclear negotiations. On Feb 3, Tasnim reported that Pezeshkian had instructed Araghchi to prepare for talks only if they were free of threats, setting the tone for conditional engagement. Over Feb 4–5, Iranian outlets broadcast red lines over scope: missiles, enrichment levels, and regional influence were explicitly declared non-negotiable, narrowing the talks to the nuclear file alone. On Feb 6, Al-Mayadeen’s envoy reported live from Muscat that indirect negotiations had concluded with both sides agreeing to continue dialogue. Throughout, the coordinated narrative insisted Iran was negotiating from strength. By the weekend, the Iran-ecosystem shifted to institutional management: IRNA framed the channel as a “dance of shadows,” parliament announced a closed session to review the process, and Kayhan was already reframing the U.S. return to talks as proof that Washington’s earlier claims about destroying Iran’s nuclear capability were a lie (The logic was straightforward: if Trump actually destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability, why is Washington now negotiating over it?)
Chinese coverage stayed notably inward-facing: APEC "China Year" stewardship, Spring Festival Gala rehearsals, and Guancha asking whether Japan's LDP landslide could avoid a "Truss-style collapse", with limited direct engagement on the Muscat mechanics beyond Xinhua relaying Pezeshkian's "Iran will not accept bullying."
The Houthi ecosystem read the Muscat talks differently. A Houthi outlet ran an op-ed titled “Muscat Negotiations and the Edge of the Abyss,” noting the CENTCOM commander’s presence with the U.S. delegation and concluding that Washington’s demands amount to surrender. When Iran was given those two options, the author wrote, it chose confrontation. The piece also expressed frustration that Russia and China failed to deliver during “the 12-day war,” and argued that Israel no longer wants normalization or the Abraham Accords but submission, claiming that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and Qatar all sense it. The framing is notable: the resistance axis is no longer positioning this as “us vs. them” but as “everyone vs. Israel.”
A second major storyline emerged mid-window with the expiration of the New START treaty on Feb 5. Russian outlets led the framing, with RIA Novosti declaring that “now everything will be decided by weapons,” while TASS positioned the lapse as the first time since 1972 that no binding nuclear treaty governed U.S.–Russia arsenals. IRNA carried Guterres calling it “a grave moment,” Guancha reported the only U.S.–Russia nuclear treaty had expired, and by Feb 6, RT was framing the post-treaty environment as one requiring trilateral talks including China. By the weekend, Moscow had pivoted further: RT ran “Europe needs Russia to survive” while RIA’s daily battlefield dashboarding normalized territorial claims as routine scorekeeping. The system was preparing audiences for a world without arms-control guardrails while positioning Russia as the responsible party seeking dialogue.
Beneath these two dominant storylines, persistent threads continued: U.S. institutional decay coverage (from the Epstein scandal’s reach to Hezbollah-aligned and Lebanese outlets coordinating on the Washington Post’s mass layoffs and CEO departure) and Hezbollah-aligned outlets’ sustained documentation of southern Lebanon “environmental extermination” by Israel.
Deep Dive
1. Iran-U.S. Negotiations: Diplomacy and Deterrence as One System
This was the week’s clearest display of how the system actually works. On Feb 4, Kayhan published “the answer to threats is threat, not negotiation” alongside a defense-doctrine shift claim toward “rapid, wide-ranging operations.” Simultaneously, IRNA reported that the White House confirmed that talks would proceed. On Feb 6, Kayhan framed domestic unrest as a CIA-Mossad multi-layer operation under the Supreme Leader’s “war of meaning” guidance; IRNA carried Russia’s “hope for U.S. rationality toward Iran.”
By Feb 7-8, the pattern continued: Kayhan declared “enemies are condemned to defeat” and ran blame-displacement about U.S. sanctions engineering economic pain, while IRNA served the “dance of shadows” diplomatic framing and a Richard Haass quote validating de-escalation. Kayhan maintains deterrence credibility for the IRGC base; IRNA manages the diplomatic optic. Without Kayhan’s deterrence lane, IRNA’s diplomacy loses leverage. Without IRNA’s engagement lane, Kayhan’s deterrence lacks an off-ramp.
By mid-week, Tehran tightened message discipline around the Muscat channel. Pezeshkian stressed “precision in statements related to nuclear talks.” Parliament scheduled a closed session to review the negotiation process, with Araghchi and Chief of Staff Mousavi both attending. IRGC forces arrested 11 leaders of PJAK, a Kurdish militant group operating along Iran’s border with Iraq, on charges of running two sabotage cells in Kermanshah province with direct links to the group’s external leadership. Combined with a hardline outlet’s Feb 6 framing of domestic unrest as a CIA-Mossad multi-layer operation, the pattern is a security posture calibrated for sustained diplomatic engagement: locking down internal threats while keeping the external lane open.
Iranian deterrence messaging ran continuously alongside the Muscat diplomacy. On Feb 3, Iran’s state news agency ran “one week of closing Hormuz is sufficient for the world to recognize Iran’s power” alongside three new space-industry achievements, with a second Iranian outlet framing space as a “new geopolitical environment.” On Feb 5, the same outlet quoted “dozens of Zionist officers” saying Israel had “reached the point of collapse.” On Feb 7, Maj. Gen. Mousavi warned “any adventurism against Iran has a heavy price.” By Feb 8, an Iranian hardline daily was citing the Wall Street Journal to validate that Iran’s missile capability “changed the equations” and assigning regional war consequences to the U.S. and Israel.
On Feb 9, a Houthi newspaper carried Iranian defense ministry claims of new equipment joining defense units, while the Houthi news agency relayed Russian General Staff statements framing AI as “decisive for military superiority.” The external-validation sourcing intensified as the week progressed: WSJ on missiles, an Israeli expert arguing on Israeli radio that Trump’s confrontation with Iran is not about nuclear weapons but about seizing oil reserves to outcompete China. Each deploys a Western or Israeli voice to say what Tehran wants heard but gains credibility by not saying itself.
The deterrence messaging wasn’t limited to editorials and wire quotes. On Feb 7,