When Narratives Become Security: Media, Dehumanization, and the Limits of Peacebuilding

As tensions between the United States and Iran escalated in 2026, political rhetoric increasingly framed the Middle East through narratives of existential threat and civilizational conflict. Drawing on securitization theory and Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, this article examines how media discourse and dehumanizing representations shape public support for military escalation while complicating diplomacy and long-term peacebuilding efforts.

“A whole civilization will die tonight,” says the democratically elected president of the biggest economy of the world on live TV. That was not a military assessment; it was a performative narrative of threat. It was a powerful actor playing a dangerous game - putting a label and a target on an entire nation. Trump’s political rhetoric relies heavily on spectacle, repetition, and public performance - with an audience composed of 111.5 million followers on X alone. Such political performances often depend on the construction of a recognizable enemy, and with quotes such as, “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” he shows the audience who it is. However, peace is the farthest of his possible achievements as actions from his administration become obstacles to peacebuilding efforts in the region. A question arises: how does discourse impact conflict resolution and what are the limits of peacebuilding in such scenarios?

This dynamic can be explained by a theoretical point of view. Securitization theory argues that political actors can transform complex political realities into existential threats through performative forms of discourse known as “speech acts.” Once populations are repeatedly framed through the language of terrorism, civilizational danger, or permanent insecurity, extraordinary responses such as militarization and war become easier to justify. In conflicts involving the Middle East, these narratives often intersect with orientalist representations that portray the region as inherently violent, irrational, or unstable, reinforcing processes of dehumanization that complicate diplomacy and peacebuilding. In an exclusive interview for Atlas Broadcasting, Political Scientist and PhD professor of International Security Camila Braga states that, “These actors are important because they help build the legitimacy of that discourse. So, the actor will rely on symbols that the audience considers legitimate and on ways of communicating effectively with that audience. In many cases, these functional actors are media actors: individuals with a strong media presence or media agencies themselves.”

Another perspective that helps explain why such conflicts are so difficult to resolve is the concept of Orientalism, as put forth by Palestinian-American academic Edward Said. Said argues that Orientalist narratives and processes of dehumanization are deeply interconnected in contemporary conflict discourse. Western representations of the Middle East frequently reduce the region to simplified images of irrationality, violence, fanaticism, and instability, constructing a binary in which the “West” appears rational and civilized in contrast to a threatening and inferior “Orient.” “It is an identity forged from our own (self) identity, from our (self) perspective, projected onto the other. It’s the construction of the other as the enemy, based on our projected fears and expectations, as the one who threatens our existence and our way of living,” says Professor Braga.

What Trump does is give Orientalism a new mask, one that fits the 21st century. Beginning in February 2026, the Trump administration translated narratives of existential threat into military escalation through coordinated attacks against Iran. Framed as necessary responses to nuclear danger and regional insecurity, the bombings quickly produced broader instability across the Middle East. The shift from discourse to intervention illustrates a central insight of securitization theory: once an issue is accepted as an existential threat, extraordinary measures become politically legitimized, and what began as a performative narrative of insecurity evolved into a geopolitical reality with consequences far beyond Washington or Tehran.

With the aftermath of the bombings still echoing in the political scenario, it is important to understand that what started in the discourse continues into the social sphere. The interconnected role of the audience (the population) and the speech actor (the government) in transforming an issue that should be handled with caution into a game of hot potato is a key element in understanding how armed conflicts are dealt with nowadays - from peace treaties to intervention. It isn’t just a powerful man addressing an issue, it is millions of his electorate endorsing it, convinced by his discourse.

So, is there a solution for such a scenario? If there is, it is a tricky one, for it has to be self-sustainable and structural to the point of transforming the conflict into a long-lasting peace situation. For Braga: “If you have a conflict that lasts five years, you may need fifty years of peacebuilding afterward.” Reconciliation and peace processes do not happen through a single agreement; they happen gradually, and reconstructing trust is a long-term process — even a generational one.