This study looks into how some international news organizations established credibility through their headline coverage of the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict in June 2025. Using Van Leeuwen's (2007) legitimation paradigm, the study examines 35 headlines from major English-language media outlets, including Fox News and Reuters. This study employs qualitative discourse analysis to determine how headlines support or contradict military and political actions during the conflict by using mythopoesis, moral evaluation, authorization, and justification. It was to investigate the roles that mythopoesis, moral assessment, authorization, and justification play in conflict reporting. The results show that while evaluative and emotionally charged word choices create moral narratives of threat, victimhood, and triumph, headlines often cite institutional and expert authority to justify political and military operations. While mythopoesis creates both good and negative narratives, portraying players as either heroes or criminals, rationalization techniques are frequently instrumental or theoretical, connecting events causally to justify reactions or results. The study highlights the intricate interactions between language choices, ideological positioning, and media framing in modern conflict reporting and demonstrates how headline discourse is a strategic site for building legitimacy, influencing public perception, and mediating interpretations of geopolitical events.