Ground war against Iran - what the media claims, what the world simply accepts and what research actually found

The headlines of the past weeks read like a script just before the big finale. Ground war imminent. Marines on the way. The 82nd Airborne Division approaching. A third aircraft carrier underway. Senator Lindsey Graham compared it on Fox News to Iwo Jima. There was no need to worry, the United States had done this before. It sounds like the eve of something big. But it is not true.

Iwo Jima. 1945. Nearly 70,000 US Marines against a deeply entrenched Japanese army. 36 days of fighting. Almost 7,000 American dead. It was not a victory to celebrate - it was one of the bloodiest moments in the history of the US armed forces, a name that stands for sacrifice, not for heroic romance.

Lindsey Graham sits on Fox News in 2026 and throws this name into the conversation as if it were a slogan. Kharg Island, a five square kilometer oil infrastructure island, is supposed to become the new Iwo Jima. You wonder whether Graham knows what he is saying - and come to the conclusion that he probably does and does not care. History as a backdrop for the next appearance. The dead of 1945 as props for a Fox News segment. Anyone who speaks like this has understood neither history nor the people who paid for it with their lives.

Let us start with the USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group. On March 13, media worldwide reported that three ships with 2,200 Marines had departed from Japan toward the Middle East. The story spread within hours. Newsrooms around the world tracked the alleged movement of the unit through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. What no one mentioned: one of the three ships, the USS San Diego, never left Japan. It is still there. The other two ships do not carry 2,200 but 1,500 Marines - and they are currently stationed in Diego Garcia. That is a British territory in the Indian Ocean, around 4,260 kilometers from Iran’s coast. From an imminent invasion, that is about as far away as the headlines are from reality.

Then the second naval unit, the USS Boxer Group. Many reports stated that it departed from Hawaii on March 19. In reality, it departed from San Diego. Ahead of it lie around 22,200 kilometers. At the earliest, it could reach the region in mid April - if it goes there at all. Research in San Diego showed that the unit itself does not yet know for certain where it is headed. Whether to the Gulf or only into the Pacific to replace the withdrawn Tripoli group remains unclear.

Next, the 82nd Airborne Division. CBS linked it directly to the Iran war. NPR wrote of 2,000 to 3,000 paratroopers who could be deployed to the region and combined this with the naval units into a total of 6,000 to 8,000 ground troops near Iran. The global press adopted this without asking further questions. What was missing: most of the unit is currently training in Louisiana. The battalion that is preparing to deploy, research showed, is assigned a protection role - no attack, no assault, no ground invasion. CENTCOM sources confirm that the unit is waiting for someone in Washington to make a decision. The idea of using the 82nd Airborne for an invasion was not a serious plan even during the Iraq War in 2003 - and at that time, a large portion of the entire US Army was ready. The 82nd is a light infantry unit. It does not jump over enemy capitals. As early as March 25, we had already expressed our doubts and our research was already underway.

Then the third aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush. It is in Virginia. With a generous leave policy over the Easter week. It would theoretically be ready - but it is not sailing. And the second carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, which has so far bombed Iran from the Mediterranean? It is in Souda Bay on Crete. Not for combat operations. A fire broke out on board that started in the ship’s laundry areas. More than 100 berths became unusable, several hundred sailors had to be relocated. The Gerald Ford is not on its way to war. It is repairing its laundry.

The US aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush may now be deployed to the Middle East Military sources say the Pentagon has been deliberately overstating the readiness and strength of the Marines for weeks. Partly out of carelessness, partly as deliberate misinformation to pressure Tehran, and to please Trump. The White House has the right to unsettle Iran. That is politics, that is strategy, that is as old as warfare itself. But media outlets that take these signals without research and present them as fact are doing something else. They are frightening the public. Active soldiers have come forward, worried about whether they will be sent into a ground war. People in uniform reading headlines and wondering whether they will soon die. For a story that in this form is not true.

It is not the first time. After the arrest of Nicolás Maduro in January, the same media storm arose - hours of reporting about troop movements suggesting an imminent US invasion. It did not happen. And the alleged mining of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, which circulated for weeks - that also later dissolved into nothing. Either Iran had laid very little or only a few symbolic mines as a signal. That was the result of on the ground research in Iran.

The mechanism is always the same. One report, one number, one ship, one troop movement - and the machine runs. No one checks whether the third ship actually sailed. No one asks what 1,500 Marines in Diego Garcia mean when the target is 4,260 kilometers away. No one explains that a laundry repair on Crete is not a show of force.

Sending signals to Tehran - that is Washington’s job. Frightening the public with them - that is not the job of the media. That is why we research every piece of information before we publish it. We verify, or we immediately express our doubts - as we did on March 25. Journalism is the final responsibility toward information. Readers have the right to be informed truthfully. Such research is demanding, costly and often thankless. But misinformation in 2026 - in a world that is already suffering from too many fractures - is the last thing anyone needs. It is a question of attitude.