Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps released a highly produced propaganda video on February 16 featuring the Khorramshahr-4 ballistic missile alongside explicit threats against the United States, Israel, the Israel Defense Forces, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The timing of the release—on the eve of renewed nuclear negotiations with Washington—appears calculated to project strength, intimidate adversaries, and shape the diplomatic environment through psychological pressure.

The video, which appears to incorporate AI-enhanced imagery and simulated strike sequences, depicts missile launches followed by scenes of widespread destruction targeting U.S. military installations in the region, Israeli strategic sites, and a personalized visual focus on Netanyahu. Analysts interpret the messaging as a continuation of Tehran’s long-standing dual-track strategy: engaging in negotiations while simultaneously signaling military capability and willingness to escalate.

Central to the footage is the Khorramshahr-4, one of Iran’s most advanced liquid-fueled ballistic missiles, believed to have a range sufficient to reach Israel and U.S. bases across the Middle East. By foregrounding this system, the IRGC is emphasizing payload capacity and destructive potential rather than precision, reinforcing a deterrence narrative aimed at threatening critical infrastructure. The platform’s inclusion serves both a domestic propaganda purpose and an external coercive function intended to influence negotiating leverage.

The release coincides with Iranian naval exercises and a partial operational disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, further amplifying the message that Tehran retains escalation options across multiple domains. Maritime signaling in that strategic chokepoint carries global economic implications, particularly for energy markets, and historically has been used by Iran to demonstrate its ability to impose costs beyond the immediate battlefield.

For U.S. and Israeli defense planners, the video underscores the persistent challenge of negotiating with a regime that pairs diplomatic engagement with overt military signaling. During previous nuclear talks, similar patterns emerged in which missile tests, proxy activity, or rhetorical threats accompanied negotiation rounds. Critics argue that such tactics are designed to extract concessions by raising the perceived cost of failure, while supporters of continued diplomacy maintain that sustained dialogue is necessary to prevent uncontrolled escalation.

The Trump administration’s decision to reenter indirect negotiations following the 2025 Israel-Iran confrontation reflects a strategy that combines renewed maximum pressure with conditional diplomatic channels. In this framework, public threats from the IRGC are likely to reinforce calls in Washington and Jerusalem for maintaining a strong deterrent posture, including forward-deployed forces and missile defense readiness.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they will not permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons capability and view long-range missile development as an integral component of that threat matrix. The personalized targeting of Netanyahu in the video is expected to further harden Israeli security positions and strengthen coordination with U.S. counterparts.

The immediate impact of the video is unlikely to alter the formal agenda of the Geneva talks, but it contributes to an atmosphere of distrust that complicates progress. Negotiations conducted under conditions of overt intimidation face structural limits, as each side must account for domestic political optics and alliance credibility.

Tehran’s messaging illustrates a consistent strategic doctrine: diplomacy conducted in parallel with demonstrative displays of force. Whether this approach yields leverage or deepens isolation will depend on the outcome of the current talks and the willingness of the international community to respond to coercive signaling while pursuing nonproliferation objectives. In the meantime, regional actors remain on heightened alert as rhetoric, military posturing, and negotiations unfold simultaneously.