The Biden administration has amended federal regulations to exempt internet communications services from Iran sanctions, allowing Iranians to access certain American software, hardware and services.
The existing ‘sanctions waiver’ was granted by the US Treasury in September 2022, as thousands across Iran took to the streets following the death in custody of the 22-year old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for improper hijab.
On Friday, that waiver was codified and entered federal regulations, according to a notice published on the Federal Register. The new rule incorporates “a general license relating to the export, reexport, and provision of certain services, software, and hardware incident to communications over the internet,” the official summary of the document reads.
This would be good news for many Iranians, activists, in particular, who for many years have been stuck between a rock and a hard place –with US sanctions often aggravating the agony of internet users struggling to find a way around the regime’s censorship.
“This should give compliance teams at big tech companies more assurances to finally open up services such as Google Cloud Platform for hosting circumvention tools for Iran,” Mahsa Alimardani, an Internet researcher at Oxford University, posted on X.
Tech giants such as Google and Amazon are known to have been restricting the use of their cloud services and platforms for hosting tools that could help users in Iran to circumvent the government's draconian Internet censorship.
Advocates of free Internet, as well as technologists who want to provide circumvention tools to Iranian users, have criticized ‘blind’ US sanctions that they say harm ordinary people more than they deny technology to the sanctioned government. They now hope that the ‘waiver’ being codified into federal regulations would pave the way for the tech companies to provide services to Iranians that they until now refused.
“This codification is a reminder to technology companies that they bear the responsibility to ensure their platforms remain accessible to Iranian civil society in the face of the Islamic Republic’s digital repression,” freedom of expression campaigners Article 19 said in a statement published on their website.
US administrations –at least since the 2009 protests in Iran– have consistently underlined the importance of keeping ordinary Iranians ‘connected’ to the outside world. In recent years, the US Treasury has issued several licenses to exempt certain internet communications services from its Iran sanctions.
It remains to be seen whether the latest move –and the codification of the exemptions– is enough to convince tech companies to offer their service to Iranians inside Iran.
In 2022, amid the most widespread protests in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, was asked if he’d make Starlink internet services available to the people of Iran. In response, he said his company would apply for an exemption from the US treasury –which in turn exempted some satellite internet equipment from sanctions.
In December 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that Starlink equipment was being smuggled into Iran. Roughly the same time, Google announced that it was working to create secure internet access for Iranians inside of Iran.
Abbas Amirifar, who is better known as Ahmadinejad's exorcist, says incumbent Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's main political ambition is defeating President Ebrahim Raisi in the 2025 Presidential election.
Ghalibaf withdrew from the presidential race twice, in 2017 and 2021, in favor of Raisi. In 2017, he stepped aside to give Raisi the upper hand among conservatives, although Raisi ultimately lost to Hassan Rouhani. In 2021, Ghalibaf did not enter the race, knowing, like everyone else in Iran, that Raisi, as Khamenei's chosen candidate, was going to win.
Meanwhile, as reported by the Rouydad24 website in Tehran, several conservative "gangs" have been making incriminating disclosures against each other over the past week. The group named Masaf (Battle), led by regime propagandist Ali Akbar Raefipour, has been more prominent in the corridors of power in Iran than any other group.
According to Rouydad24, until mid-2021, Masaf was known primarily as a cultural group that focused on discussions about the re-emergence of the Shiites' hidden Imam from occultation, as well as debates about Bahaism and Judaism. These discussions were not significant enough to be considered political. However, after the presidential election, Masaf has become known as a political propaganda group due to its serious confrontations with Majles Speaker Ghalibaf.
Subsequently several social media influencers and conservative media outlets started a fierce campaign against Masaf, which is now fighting other conservative factions rather than fighting Israel and the West as it has been always claiming, the website wrote.
In the March 1parliamentary election, a coalition known as the Coalition Council of Revolutionary Forces (Persian acronym SHANA) led by Ghalibaf and his predecessor Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, and another group called the Popular Coalition of Revolutionary Forces (Persian acronym AMNA) led by Roads and Urban Planning Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash and ultraconservative figure Hamid Rasai were the main players. The latter coalition that previously supported Ahmadinejad, chose to Support the Raisi Administration in this election.
Masaf formed a third group named Iran Morning Front with a list that shared more than 70 percent of its candidates with AMNA. Masaf shared only one candidate with SHANA, so it was clearly an ally of the pro-Raisi coalition. While Masaf claims 50 of the candidates it introduced have won the election, other groups say that many of those 50 candidates were also on the other two groups' lists.
After the election, several disclosures were made about Masaf's financial record. Their rivals said that tens of billions of rials were deposited from unidentified sources into the accounts of Raefipour's inner circles including some of his family members. One of these happened to be Raefipour's three-years-old son!
Counteraccusations were made against Ghalibaf and his family. In the meantime, while Ghalibaf's supporters claim that Khamenei backs him as the next Speaker of the Majles, Rasai wrote in his newspaper that Iranians want a new Speaker. Apart from that, the Raisi administration has introduced a new vice president for parliamentary affairs, showing its interest in playing an active role in the election to determine the new Speaker.
In another development, shedding light on the fierce competition among various conservative groups who claim to have won the election, the incumbent MP from Marvadasht Jalil Rashidi Koochi says the disclosures and mudslinging that is going on among various conservative groups is a war of words for power.
However, he criticized all conservative groups for their ruthless attacks on each other. Koochi likened the latest election in Iran to a competition within a single group, as all candidates came from the same camp while their political rivals were barred from running. He also accused the conservatives of using illegitimate access to intelligence to attack their opponents.
The IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency has published a series of interview articles about the life of Quds Force deputy commander Mohammad-Hadi Haji-Rahimi, who was killed in an apparent Israeli attack on Iran's consulate in Damascus on April 1. The destruction of the building triggered unprecedented aerial attacks on Israel by Tehran.
Tasnim has dubbed Haji-Rahimi the "Commander Without Borders," providing details about his life and crediting him with pioneering certain military tactics.
Haji-Rahimi is introduced as the commander of the Imam Ali Unit, about which little public information is available. Tasnim, however, claims it is the largest unit within the Quds Force.
It is mentioned that Haji-Rahimi played an active role in training militias for Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
“He also went to Afghanistan to set up a training center, which was very successful. When he returned, he looked very muddled due to poor living conditions. However, it did not bother him, as he took all the hardships to fulfill his mission,” an ex-commander reportedly told Tasnim.
“The core of Lebanese Hezbollah forces were trained in Imam Hossein Garrison in Iran,” an ex-Imam Ali Unit commander told Tasnim.
Lebanese Hezbollah, sanctioned by Western governments including the US and regional states like Saudi Arabia, is part of the "Axis of Resistance." This group consists of Tehran-sponsored militias in the region, including Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq.
According to another interview, “Even during the first round of training Iraqi militias in Iran, thousands attended.”
“Martyr Haji-Rahimi had forces everywhere in Syria. The unit under his command was present from Damascus to the front line of the battle in Hama and Aleppo and carried out missions. They were present with the army commanders and gave them military advice,” another commander told Tasnim.
Quds Force Modeled After US Army’s Green Berets
Farzin Nadimi from the Washington Institute notes that the IRGC Quds Force was largely modeled after the US Army’s Green Berets.
“The Green Berets' motto is the Latin 'De Oppresso Liber,' which means to free the oppressed around the world. They were also called soldier-diplomats,” the security and defense analyst told Iran International.
Providing a more complete picture, Nadimi elaborated that, like today's Quds Force, the Cold War-era Green Berets aimed to train, organize, and advise guerrilla wars against communist enemies worldwide, including foreign internal defense, security force assistance, and unconventional warfare.
“Haji-Rahimi was an influential figure in Quds Force; some would argue that he was Qasem Soleimani’s right-hand man. He had a significant role in training and organizing proxy forces,” the analyst specializing in Iran's security and defense affairs explained.
Former IRGC Quds Force commander Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020, under the order of then-President Donald Trump. Washington stated at the time that Soleimani was planning attacks on US diplomats and service members in the region.
Nadimi explained that the Quds Force functions more like an umbrella organization rather than a typical military structure.
"It possesses the skeleton of an organization with units and commanders, but you can't confidently say that it has X number of forces. It could sometimes recruit forces from Basij and the army for specific missions," he said.
Qasem Soleimani described the force in 2018 saying that while “it has a structure, statutes, rules, and regulations” it is “an intellectual system” in reality.
Tasnim’s Portrayal of Haji-Rahimi as a ‘Pioneer’
According to Tasnim's chronicles about Haji-Rahimi, he was a pioneer in airdropping in Iran and Syria.
But, Nadimi debunks that fact.
“Airdropping in Iran started during the Mohammad Reza Shah era when Lockheed C-130 Hercules was introduced to Iranian service in 1962. In the region, including in Syria, the US was the first to initiate dropping aid,” Nadimi said.
As part of the 1991 mission to aid Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq, the US and the international community conducted humanitarian airdrops. In 2014, the US and UK airdropped aid to Yazidis fleeing IS forces on Sinjar Mountain in Iraq. A few months later, supplies were airdropped to Iraqi military forces near the town of Bayji in northern Iraq. Additionally, between 2014 and 2015, the US airdropped tons of weapons and ammunition to Kurdish and other anti-regime troops in northern Syria, according to the Washington Institute.
In response to Tasnim's portrayal of Haji-Rahimi as a pioneer in using drones for artillery spotting, Nadimi expressed skepticism.
“Using drones for artillery spotting is nothing new, but specifically in the Syria region, was it common? It’s hard to say,” Nadimi said.
Even so, this does not qualify as pioneering the tactic, as British forces used drones for reconnaissance and artillery spotting during the Gulf War in 1991.
Timing of Haji-Rahimi’s Profile in Iranian State Media
According to Tasnim, “Haji-Rahimi's name and face were never revealed before,” but they are being publicized now to “analyze the various aspects of the personality and management of this ‘great’ commander.”
Experts say the decision to reveal details about a previously clandestine wing of the IRGC aligns with a recent shift in the commanders' approach, marked by more public warnings and boastful statements.
Initially, the strategy to keep details about IRGC officials secret was designed to protect officers and help them evade responsibility. However, this recent shift appears to be part of a broader communication tactic.
In a sign of this change, IRGC commanders have recently intensified their direct threats to Western nations and leveraged the US position to their advantage.
Esmail Qaani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force, issued a threat on Wednesday against France, Germany, and the UK for supporting Israel to intercept Iranian missiles and drones.
“The American president, who is devoted to defending the Zionist regime, officially announced to the Israelis, ‘I will not enter the conflict,’” Qaani said. He urged regional leaders "who rely on America" to be "more sensible." "Will America defend them more than the Zionist regime?"
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