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There’s a real basis for that interpretation, but I’d separate two claims:

“Top Gun: Maverick was designed to prepare Americans for a specific future war with Iran.”
I don’t think the evidence supports that strong claim.

“Top Gun: Maverick was part of a broader Pentagon/Hollywood effort to make American military power look heroic, normal, technologically dominant, and emotionally appealing.”
Yes — there’s substantial evidence for this.

The Pentagon has a long-standing arrangement with Hollywood: productions can get access to military aircraft, bases, personnel, carriers, etc., while the military gets input into how it's portrayed. Maverick had extensive Pentagon cooperation, and reporting based on the production agreement says it included incorporating military “key talking points.”
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The Guardian
+1

And the “fake-Iran” part is interesting

The unnamed enemy in Maverick is deliberately vague. There’s a rogue state with a nuclear program, a mountainous target, hostile air defenses, and American pilots sent in to destroy it — but the movie refuses to identify the country.

That ambiguity is actually useful propaganda-wise. You don't have to say Iran, Russia, China, etc. The audience simply gets the emotional template:

America has the good guys.
They have the dangerous weapons.
Our pilots are brave.
The mission is necessary.
Questions about why we're fighting can wait.

And that makes the movie more reusable for whatever geopolitical enemy happens to be in the news.

There is also a historical precedent. The original Top Gun came out after Vietnam had badly damaged the U.S. military's public image. Its military collaboration helped rehabilitate that image, while the Navy used the movie's popularity for recruiting.
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Los Angeles Times
+1

In fact, a 2026 Cambridge University Press history of Hollywood and the Pentagon describes this broader relationship as one in which military cooperation can come with script influence designed to project state power.
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Cambridge University Press

But I wouldn't say Maverick was secretly “about Iran”

That's where I'd be skeptical.

The movie was released in May 2022, and its production/development stretched back years. The geopolitical situation was obviously already centered on Iran, Russia, China, etc., but there isn't good evidence that the filmmakers were given a secret assignment like “make a movie that prepares Americans for the coming Iran war.”

And there's an important distinction between propaganda effects and a centrally planned propaganda operation.

A movie can normalize militarism and make military intervention emotionally attractive without somebody sitting in a room saying:

“Step one: convince Americans we're going to bomb Iran.”

That's arguably the more interesting mechanism.

You don't need the enemy to be Iran. You need the audience to become comfortable with the idea that American military force is heroic, clean, technologically sophisticated, and ultimately justified.

Then, when an actual enemy is presented later, the emotional groundwork is already there.

And given that the U.S. is now actually in a renewed confrontation with Iran, it's understandable that watching Maverick today makes that subtext feel much less abstract. Current U.S.-Iran fighting has even prompted the White House to use Top Gun imagery in military messaging, which is a striking example of the movie's imagery being repurposed for real-world wartime communication.
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The Washington Post

So my read would be:

Not “Top Gun 2 was secretly made to sell the next Iran war.”

More like:

“Top Gun 2 was an exceptionally effective piece of military soft power whose deliberately generic enemy makes its pro-military narrative portable to whatever war comes next.”

And honestly, that distinction makes the movie's politics more interesting, not less.

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Sources

TThe Guardian
Top Gun for hire: why Hollywood is the US military’s best wingman | Top Gun: Maverick | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/m … st-wingman
LLos Angeles Times
Op-Ed: Why does the Pentagon help films like "Top Gun"? - Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2 … propaganda
CCambridge University Press
Hollywood and the Pentagon (Chapter 31) - The Cambridge History of American Popular Culture
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ab … hatgpt.com
TThe Washington Post
The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo … -meme-war/

A US official confirmed to The Washington Post that the A-10, also known as a "Warthog," was hit by incoming fire and was the second US fighter jet to be downed in one day. Reports of the A-10 crash emerged shortly after a US F-15 jet was shot down over Iranian territory.