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While answering a question in July about the prospects for negotiations with Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a dismissive reference to an ongoing series of AI-generated Lego animation clips produced in Iran that mock U.S. and Israeli officials. Iran will be ready to do a deal soon, Rubio suggested, because “the price they are paying is very high, despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out.” Rubio, speaking to reporters at a foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila, hadn’t even been asked about the propaganda campaign. That a sitting U.S. secretary of state felt compelled to address a cartoon campaign produced by a small group of individuals at an international security forum is itself revealing.

The first of these videos to go viral appeared online in March. Most viewers assumed it was a joke. A Lego-figurine Donald Trump jolts awake in the Oval Office as Iranian missiles rain down on a U.S. warship. Within days, it had been viewed millions of times. The video was produced by a group called Akhbar Enfejari (“Explosive News”), a small outlet operating from inside Iran reportedly with a team of roughly 10, using consumer-grade hardware. Over the following months, the group released more than a hundred videos, distributed across X, YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram, along with audio tracks on Spotify. YouTube suspended the group’s channel in April. The content kept circulating anyway.

While answering a question in July about the prospects for negotiations with Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a dismissive reference to an ongoing series of AI-generated Lego animation clips produced in Iran that mock U.S. and Israeli officials. Iran will be ready to do a deal soon, Rubio suggested, because “the price they are paying is very high, despite their tough talk and their flowery language and their stupid Lego videos they put out.” Rubio, speaking to reporters at a foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila, hadn’t even been asked about the propaganda campaign. That a sitting U.S. secretary of state felt compelled to address a cartoon campaign produced by a small group of individuals at an international security forum is itself revealing.

The first of these videos to go viral appeared online in March. Most viewers assumed it was a joke. A Lego-figurine Donald Trump jolts awake in the Oval Office as Iranian missiles rain down on a U.S. warship. Within days, it had been viewed millions of times. The video was produced by a group called Akhbar Enfejari (“Explosive News”), a small outlet operating from inside Iran reportedly with a team of roughly 10, using consumer-grade hardware. Over the following months, the group released more than a hundred videos, distributed across X, YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram, along with audio tracks on Spotify. YouTube suspended the group’s channel in April. The content kept circulating anyway.

The standard response would be to treat Akhbar Enfejari as an oddity, more prank than policy threat. That is a mistake. The campaign is proof of concept for a new operational model of propaganda, one that generative AI has........

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