See, we can't help it!

Sorry for necro posting on a 4 day old thread, but I wanted to add my 2 cents. The point of lying consistently isn't for anyone to believe what they're saying (as you point out, truth just doesn't matter anymore, see Saddam's WMDs). The point of lying is that hegemonic power is capable of constructing social reality unilaterally and wielding the ability to construct reality to achieve political goals. A huge amount of things that are incredibly relevant to geopolitics, despite being falsifiable and objectively observable, are also possible to simulate through a performance. No bomb has to be planted in a stadium to evacuate the stadium if a bomb threat is called in, and all it takes to make a bomb threat is a phone; imagine what you can do with imperial hegemony!

This phenomenon is seen pervasively in times of crisis: the state will go out and defy reality, which performatively makes reality change in turn (see Biden declaring COVID over, Trump executive order defining trans people out of existence).

So, from a postmodernist perspective, even those who try to reject the reality that is being imposed, must still abide by it. That's what power is: it's not a single, centralized institution; it's actually a strategic situation where some powerful people construct a scenario where the powerless people have to accept their condition, because they understand be worse off if they resisted, at least as individuals.

Or is it a sign that truth no longer matters in the game they're playing?

Probably that one. The West has settled on the position that Iran is evil and must be destroyed, so when a Trusted Source (our friendly and reliable ally Israel) says they did a Perfidious Thing, the press will happily pick it up and run it uncritically and the public will believe it without seeking further verification, and then the destruction can continue

They say the wrong things on purpose. They know everyone else knows they're lying. They do it to demonstrate power. It's bullying conducted on a large, systematic scale. By the time a person proves their lies are wrong, they've moved onto the next lie.

Why do this? Why the need to demonstrate this kind of power? They're making excuses for stealing and murdering. They're going to kill your family, then say they deserved it for whatever reason. It tells the out-groups they are powerless, they don't even have control over the truth. It tells the rest of their in-group they can act with impunity and feel no guilt or remorse for the atrocities they commit.

It's White Man's Burden, Manifest Destiny, thousand-year Reich, Lebensraum, Crusades, etc. etc. repackaged for the needs of Isreal and zionists.

anyone can see through them with minimal effort

This is where some of the problem is. Most people aren't even going to try to think about it, they're just going to believe what they already believe regardless of what happens. Conservatives are especially like this, but really just about anyone who isn't actively tearing down their own indoctrination is just nodding and smiling at everything around them like they've been trained to do their entire lives.

The Zionist entity is completely founded on lies, literally founded by a bunch of atheist Jews who claimed the Jewish God they don't even believe in promised the land to them. It always has contempt for the truth. The compulsion towards lying is ideological at this point. They lied about a God they don't actually believe in promising a land, so what's a small lie like lying about a ceasefire in comparison?

I think that other people and societies can care about doing the right thing more or less. Israel is a settler state, and wants to genocide its neighbors. They consistently have proven that they don't give a fuck about international law or their prestige.

"kicking the can down the road" is the basis for belief in a capitalist society. It can go on a pretty long time if you keep lying brazenly enough to an audience that only gets their news from you.

Ask Saddam about third party verification