Lawfare Daily: Iran Protests and Internet Shutdown

[Intro]

Iria Puyosa: People living in different regions of the country, or even in the same cities, but in the different areas, so the city can communicate with each other—they don't know what is happening in other areas. Also, though, that make more difficult to coordinate protests or even to protect themselves from police security repression.

So that is what is happening now in Iran.

Ariane Tabatabai: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Ariane Tabatabai, public service fellow here at Lawfare with Nate Swanson, senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council and Iria Puyosa, senior research fellow at the Democracy and Tech Initiative, also at the Atlantic Council.

Nate Swanson: This is different, you know, the government's inability to meet the needs of some people—and then people who are affiliated or slightly outside the system now, recognizing that reform is basically impossible under the current scenario.

Ariane Tabatabai: Today we're talking about the protests in Iran, the brutal regime crackdown during their lengthy internet shutdown, and the U.S. response to it.

[Main Episode]

We're still learning what happened in Iran during the very extensive shutdown, and the picture that's emerging right now is absolutely horrifying. Since the protest started on December the 28th, thousands of people with estimates ranging from about 10,000 to 30,000 people have been killed. These numbers, it's important to highlight, surpass the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

So Nate, I wanna start with you and ask you to do a little bit of a SITREP. Tell us about these protests. How did it all start?

Nate Swanson: Thanks, Ari. Thanks for having me on. Look, I mean, I think you kind of can look at these protests in like three, like unique phases here, right? So first, you kind of had just the purely what was happening inside Iran, right?

So they started on the 28th over, you know, they were sparked by economic protests, you know, the changing and the currency and the, and you know, you had the different merchants and the bazaar that were protesting, you know. That quickly—so it was very much about about economic issues, but then, you know, it quickly spread, right, so spread ultimately to all 31 provinces. We have it pretty quickly and it came much more widespread.

And you know, as we've seen in past running protests, it went from a, you know, whatever sparked it, you know, in this case economic issues to much broader political and social issues. And I think, you know, this protest make maybe like two or three of the past ones kind of had a different tenor than certainly what we saw back in like 2009.

It had a much stronger anti-regime focus, right? You had a lot of, you know, ‘death to Khamenei’ chants and basically the people on the streets saying that, you know, they have don't want regime reform anymore. They want regime change. So that was kind of the unique focus. And so I think, yeah, that was kind of phase one and at that point it was unclear what the impact would be, right?

I think was this different, the 2017 or 2019? And then at that point you couldn't say, and I remember talking in some context and they're like, oh, I think this will be the same impact of 2022. You know, widespread, lots of fervor, but not really getting the mass numbers in Tehran that you would've seen in like 2009.

Then, I think you have kind of outside interventions, right? So like phase two of this is, you know, the president basically says, we're locked and loaded, ready to protect protestors. And I think that added some fervor into people to the streets, you know, and then you combine that with Reza Pahlavi calls to protest on the 7th and 8th, and all of a sudden these took like a significantly different form.

You know, the numbers are unclear how many came out on the 8th, the 9th You know, I mean, we could talk about that in a second, but, you know, but clearly higher numbers and clearly more widespread than anticipated. And then that really goes into phase three, where you just see this, you know, unprecedented crackdown.

You know, as you said, the numbers are somewhere between 10, and 30,000 people, which is a massive difference than what we've seen in the past protests, you know, mass media protests, I think like 550 people were killed. You know, 2017 and 2019, I think there was maybe up to 1,500 in 2017, which is still very significant, but it was much more widespread across the country and not these high numbers.

You didn't have these body bags strewn across the street, the same kind of images that came out. And if you want to go back, you know, I mean. You had less than 100 for the Green Movement protest. And if you go back to like the first big anti-, you know, government protest in ‘99, or not the first one, but like a really, you know, pivotal one, student protests had four casualties in 1999.

So you're just looking at like unprecedented in terms of crackdown. So I think really at that point, the protests didn't stop, but they fundamentally changed. You know, you no longer have mass movements on the street. You have much more sporadic and off, then you have people chaining from their houses and stuff like that.

And so from at that point now you just don't have people willing to move and willing to immobilize knowing that the repression is so severe and I think of right now—so basically this is like phase three. They're like waiting on this miracle from President Trump to like deliver them from the regime.

And you know, I think that's unlikely to happen, but I kind of think those are the three phases we're in and it is very different.

Ariane Tabatabai: Yeah that's a super helpful kind of breakdown of what we've seen so far. Now, we've been talking a lot about crackdown, and we've talked about numbers, but can you kind of unpack what that crackdown looks like?

You know, with the caveat that we don't have a ton of information for reasons we're gonna talk about with area in a second here, but from what we know historically or from recent reporting, what does that machinery actually look like?

Nate Swanson: Yeah, no, that's a great question, right? We don't totally know, right? We know it's a combination of a couple different forces.

We have, you know, Basij militias, which are, you know, kind of a federated movements of, you know, of different kind of like local law enforcement. You have the IRGC is a very, you know, state military and you kind of have the LEF law enforcement forces, and I think you're really seeing all three of those who are involved in the crackdown and that, you know, that tolls up to over a million people across the country.

 So I mean, it's a massive security apparatus and so that, I think all three are being utilized in this crackdown and are playing a role. And of course I think, you know, it's being, there's clearly we don't have any real good insight into how this happened, but it's very clearly, you know, a strong political decision to change tactics on the 8th and 9th, once, you know, Pahlavi and Trump in inserted themselves to just kind of let this be and not overreact to, you know, this massive crackdown. So, I mean, there's clearly a political level, on top of that, changed tactics at that point. But yeah, the security apparatus is like all three of those.

Ariane Tabatabai: And when you say a political decision, again, we don't necessarily have the specifics, but can you kind of talk about who, what actors you might be referring to here?

Nate Swanson: Yeah. You would assume that it's, you know, the supreme leader himself who's making these decisions, ultimately.

I think you saw, you know, his, you know, the SCNS, the Supreme Council National Security, you know, Ali Larijani came out very clearly and said, you know, there's no tolerance for, I think the, you know, it's the, for sedition, that this is all, you know, a foreign back coup. And so, you know, you kind of have him as a personal representative making it clear that this is a supreme leader, you know, top of the government ordered—

Which is, was a big shift because I think in the early week you saw both the supreme leader himself and certainly the president, Pezeshkian, saying like, oh, you know, the bazaaris are part of the system, they have, you know, legitimate economic grievances, we get it.

But then they clearly, there was the shift into, you know, from very clearly the supreme leader, there was this harsh crackdown. And then, you know, even over the last week, or the last two or three days, and the supreme leaders’ come out and, you know, been very clear that he was behind this decision and, you know, blame me or not, you know, foreign influence, you know, U.S., Western, et cetera.

So, yeah, I mean, he's clearly the key person behind all this.

Ariane Tabatabai: Iria, let me turn to you. The reason why we're just starting to learn what has been going on and what Nate has been describing this is, over a month later, is because of this, really what folks have been describing as a very sophisticated internet shutdown.

I don't think we all of us have a very good sense of what that actually means in practice. Like how does it work? So can you do like a little, you know, internet shutdown for dummies for us? How does it work? What is it?

Iria Puyosa: Well, Ari, an internet shut down is basically cutting off the connectivity for people inside the region, area, a country level.

So that can be done by different mechanisms, different ways. Most of the times is an intersection of the connectivity from the user to the internet service providers. In the case of Iran, that is facilitated because of the direct control of the telecommunication infrastructure and the access to internet in general.

So they are able to disrupt the network in several ways. Or if you say in this case, they started by trolling the connectivity that being, making it so slow. It's still there, but it's noticeable. It's hard for people to use 4G the way people would like to use during protests is all loading emails, the protest that things can be, those type of communications can be done.

When they slow down the connectivity as levels who are not enough for all loading video. That is a way to do it. It's not as radical. The connectivity is still there, but, and Iran did that at the beginning of the unrest. But they move it to rustic disconnect, all communications, even phone communications, SMS communications, hereadays, people say text messages.

So all these scenes who were in telecommunications never were disrupted in Iraq. And in the case that is not necessarily sophisticated, but it's a wider scale. It's a massive disruption of the connectivity. So basically people inside Iran have been completely disconnected of the internet in the last month, that it had implications for getting out news about what is happening in the country. It allowed those human rights, the level crowd down Nate was describing there is allowed to happen with, without people outside the country having the opportunity to comment. And actually it affected communications inside the country.

So people living in different regions of the country through, or even in the same cities, but in the different areas, so the city can communicate with each other—They don't know what is happening in other areas. So though that made more difficult to coordinate protests or even to protect themselves from police security repression.

So that, that is what is happening now in around.

Ariane Tabatabai: You know, a lot of experts have been talking about this as, you know, you said not necessarily sophisticated, but certainly as unprecedented in the, in terms of how, at least how long this has been. You've done a lot of work in other regions, Latin America, Africa, et cetera.

Can you talk a little bit to us about whether this is actually truly unprecedented or not? Do we have any kind of historical precedence or similar examples elsewhere that we're not aware of? Certainly Iran has done this in the past, but where else have we seen this?

Iria Puyosa: Yeah, we see internet shut downs in other regions of the world.

We have seen internet downs in Latin America and in Africa. There are ongoing internet downs at the moment. In India, for instance, India is the country in the world in which we more often see internet downs but not related with protests, but for different reasons. It is a very complex situation in India because there are very different reasons for ongoing regional shutdowns.

But we had the case of, Ethiopia, in which the countries of an army conflict have been almost three years of an internet shutdown down in a region of the country. We saw recently during presidential elections in Uganda where the internet was shut down for four days. And so that we have seen this—shutdowns during protests in Venezuela or Cuba.

Also Belarus is another country who has seen that kind of government overreach—population for the connectivity in moments of political unrest. So, so that is not unprecedented. Iran had done it, Iran did in 2019. It then did it in 2022. But the—that made this particular shut down interesting is not this unique, is not, it's not the first time it did, or other countries did it—

It is the organization around the shutdown. They are not thinking about digital as something just in time. People are protesting. We cut off the internet. The internet is going to get bad when the protestors are repressed so that people go back to their house. That is usually the logic. That is what the repressor attempt to do when they do shut down.

It's wait until the repression do their work. People get too afraid to fearful of being killed, and in this case, the number of killings is substantial. So they expect people to get back home and then the connectivity is restored. That is we what usually happens.

It's not what is supposed to be happening here because the Iranian activity had already said, very explicitly, they are not thinking about restaurant connectivity to the normal levels. They are they have been allowing some connectivity in the last few days. But the idea according to the information we are getting is that there is no coming back as a normal internet connectivity, free for everybody in the future. That is not the plan.

The plan is to have a sort of intranet for Iranian people in which they can use Some of the service we are facilitated by the internet connection, but within the country so they can visit government, censor it, allow it for the government to use work size, right? I guess banking for instance.

Public service, e-government services, that kind of scenes are supposed to be allowed in the future. They are talking about March as the moment in which that connectivity that restricted connectivity will be back. That is not very common. There are very few countries who have that kind system, but that we call it the national internet.

We have seen that in China, of course, China with the Great Fire Wall, they allow to do that. We see that in Cuba and with, they had some sort of internet too, and the Korea had that. So we are talking about very highly repressed, closed societies. The issue is Iranians are already connected.

Iranians are the global digital economy. Even though this is a repressive regime, it's a regime who had trade with other countries. People of Iran had communications with people of the Iranian diaspora, but also with people from other countries, which they do business. They exchange knowledge. They enjoy cultural goods from other countries.

So that is way more harder, when people are really used to, to the connectivity, to lost that connectivity. And that is what Iran is trying to do here, and that is what is considered unprecedented and is really different what we are seen in other shutdowns in other places.

Ariane Tabatabai: And Iria you mentioned this notion of the intranet. I guess, you know, the regime has been talking about this for a few years now. Is it just more feasible now that they have been effectively engaging in all of the activities that you described over the past few weeks? Or, you know, basically how much weight should we put on this notion of an intranet actually being feasible this time around?

Because, you know, I remember, you know, going back over a decade at this point where they've kind of on and off talked about this notion.

Iria Puyosa: Yeah, they have been talking about this notion. I think they are being, preparing technically to make this possible. And the, as I mentioned earlier, the control, they had, all the internet providers, the telecommunication they had, they control a large amount of the connectivity were state companies, state provider, but they also are kind of, forcing foreign companies to provide internet access to comply with these rules. So they had a strong control of that infrastructure and the potential for connectivity. So they had the legal elements, the technical elements to do that.

The issues is more of they don't have these services. As a, the—China can do that because China had, is a huge economy. They have their own providers for whatever you needed, and they can have that digital economy with China and allowing only certain connections with outside. It's not the case for Iran.

Iran really is more in need to have a change with other countries, so it's going to be more difficult. Also, for instance the ecosystem applications, people are used to social media. Iran had no the similar offer, so China had, so that those more sociocultural factors and economic factors are the barriers for this to be really effective for Iran to be able to maintain that blockage of the connectivity with the outside internet, so the open free global internet and restricted people to a national internet.

Ariane Tabatabai: Thanks Iria for at least clarifying all of these for me because I've been really struggling with kind of understanding what this all that actually means.

Nate, let me come back to you. So, you know, with all of the caveats that we are still learning a lot, and we don't have a full picture because of everything Iria just talked about, but to the extent that we do know, where do the protests stand now?

I feel like the issue of the protest has been essentially buried in the headlines between domestic things going on in the United States, NATO things, but also when it comes to Iran, the attention has sort of shifted from the protest to a large extent, to the nuclear issue, to tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

So what's going on domestically?

Nate Swanson: Yeah, thanks. I mean, it's a really good question and it's hard to totally know. I think we're in this phase where, you know, Iran is like retaking control of the streets, right? The regime has—the government clearly feels confident in their ability to manage this current crisis,

But it's done nothing to actually address any of the longer term systemic problems.

It's pretty staggering. You know how bad it is for the average everyday Iranian, right. And so just coming into the protest, and I probably should have touched on this earlier, you know, we're looking at, you know, food prices were up 75% last year. Inflation I think was above 40% last year, and it was above 30%, like six or seven straight years.

You know, you can't buy bread, you know, literally anymore. You know, I mean, or a bag of rice. I mean, it's just, you know, like this is not sustainable. And so, you know, the protests have been quelled for the moment. I think. It doesn't seem like there's large scale demonstrations. You know, the Iranians have control of the streets, you know, despite Trump's, you know, urging, no one has taken over control of government buildings, we're aware of.

But we're kind of back where we were on like December 27th, where this is like, this is just a powder keg waiting to blow again. And so I think that it's the time between protests is probably gonna be lower at this point, even with this killing, right.

You know, these things used to happen every like 10 years. And then, you know, like, you know, 1990, 1999, 2009, and then all of a sudden, you know, it was like 2017, 2019, 2022, ‘25, ‘26. You know, so, I mean, I think that, you know, it this is, if the things don't radically change with Iran's foreign policy and domestic policy, which I don't see in the short-term, like this is gonna happen again.

So I think this general dissatisfaction. It's gonna continue.

And I think it's noteworthy, although I know this is somewhat controversial in some—I mean, to see who's in the Iranian system who's like come out and just said like, this cannot continue. You see, you know, look at Mir Hossein Mousavi, you know, the Green Movement leader of 2009, he's in prison.

You know, he basically said, you know. Like this is it, there's no legitimacy left for the government. They need to step down, you know, and I know he's some people in the opposition, in diaspora here, you know, discredited him and say, subside, be quiet. But like, this is different. You know, the government's inability to meet the needs of its own people, and then people who are affiliated or slightly outside the system now recognizing that reform is basically impossible under the current scenario.

And so, I think that is the current lay of the land as I read it, but look: If we were in government working together, I'd be asking you this question. So, I mean, why don't you tell me? I mean, you know better than I do.

Ariane Tabatabai: Because I'm interviewing you!

Nate Swanson: Yeah, I know. That also worries me because I'm telling you answers.

I'm like, wait, no, Ari would know this better than I do. So,

Ariane Tabatabai: No, but I agree with you. I, one of my questions for you was going to be, you know, you've watched this from until recently, from within government for years. How different do you think this is?

Because from my perspective, what we're seeing is really different this time around, and you know, the fact that you have a regime that is willing to kill—

It's not that it's never been ruthless before it has been, but it's tried to at least deescalate to some extent. Whereas this time around, not only did they kill thousands and thousands of people, arrested thousands and thousands of people. You have regime leaders who are talking pretty openly about it, right—are not hiding it.

So, you know, the supreme leader on January 17th, came out and said, yeah, we killed thousands of people. I mean, he didn't say it quite in so many words, but he might as well have said it in so many words. And that seems a little different to me. How did you see that kind of, that comment that has strike to you as—

Nate Swanson: Yeah. Extremely. Right. I mean, it almost feels there there's no coming back from this. Right?

And I think that, and to some extent they're owning it, the fact that they can't reform in a way that's gonna meet the needs of their people, I think like matters, right? And so it does feel different and it does feel like in the Islamic, as we republic, as we knew, it is no longer gonna be the same, right?

Whatever, like legitimacy that was there in a social contract between Iran, its people is gone now. I mean, it doesn't mean there's still not supporters within the system. I just think it's, you know, it's a much, much smaller number than it's ever been. And that small number though seems to be very willing to kill to stay in place, to be frank. And I do think that is different.

And yeah, the fact that the Iranian government is acknowledging five thou—I mean, these different numbers, different places, but at one point they acknowledged 5,000 people that were killed. I mean, it's just staggering and Yeah.

And I, I think it's that definitely different and yeah. And I don't see really how they recover from this long-term.

Ariane Tabatabai: So, you know, we've talked a lot about so far, what the shutdown has, internet shutdown has meant for people and the creation of the intranet. But I wanna understand from you, how does you know when the government, so going back to the regime here, when it shuts down the internet for the people, it's also presumably shutting it down on itself.

How does it continue doing its business?

Iria Puyosa: Typically it's not what happens. And it is one of the reasons why authoritarian regimes are worried to go to an international debt because they are also affected government business are affected. People in who are priority regenerated their families are also affected.

That is what usually happen. It's not happening here, and that is what made this case particularly troubling and particularly interesting for people studying international debts. And I speak about that that idea, they've been preparing organizationally to make these at the status quo. Iran have been working, creating a sort of two-tiered systems, in which the internet is shut down completely for the majority of the population—

The majority mean 99% or more of the population don't have access to the global internet in these systems, but a few people who are part of the core elite of the regime does, and that is what happening here. They envision a system in which some users, some of the information have been flowing around, say that 16,000 people.

I don’t know for sure how this number came out, if it has exactly 16,000, it's 20,000. It's 10,000. We don't know for sure, but the fact is the, they are a group of people who are part of the elite in the Iranian government who did have access to internet at the moment. There is, it's like a, technically—

They have been provided SIM cards for their phones, who are white listed to bypass the current blockage. So they are being able to access the global internet as they normally had done in the past. But that restriction, that idea that you can kid a connectivity for elite of the, and the rest of the population is cut out, is kind of novel.

So have, having that two-tiered system, thinking about making these, the, these static school making these, the permanent solution to this problem of, yeah, the government also need the internet to conduct business. So they are trying to, so to solve that, how stable is assisting with, so a small part of the population had access and the rest doesn't.

I don't think it's very stable. But technically they have proven it's possible and they are putting their efforts on, made this war as organizational, as a, something is part of the way the Iranian stake conduct business, national and international.

Ariane Tabatabai: Thanks, Iria. I wanna turn to the United States and U.S. policy and U.S. options here for a bit.

Nate, you talked a little bit about this earlier. The president made some threats that he would go in militarily if Iran didn't stop the blood bath. For a brief moment, Iran seemed like it was, the regime was essentially saying, yeah, we're not gonna carry on the executions that we had planned. It doesn't seem like it actually did follow through on what it said, and it seems like executions are happening.

And then the president shifted his attention and threatened military action again, but seemingly completely unrelated to the protest, to get Iran back to nuclear negotiating table. As of recording today, Wednesday, February 4th, it seems like the negotiations were very short-lived and have could of at least paused for now. You and I have been around the block enough to know that these things do start and stop pretty frequently, so don't want to read too much into this—

But if you were still in your old jobs at the National Security Council at the State Department, how would you think about this moment and what's going on with regards to human rights and the protests, and would you recommend that we continue doing what we've done for a really long time now in U.S. policy, which has kind of siloed those issues from the nuclear issue and pursued these different tracks?

Or do you think, you know, going back to the point that this is really different, that we should be, maybem kind of doing all of those things at the same time and not kind of creating those divisions, these different lanes that have typically existed.

Nate Swanson: Yeah. Thanks. Let me, I'm gonna answer those separately.

Right so, on the first part about, you know, what would we have done to date, right? I think it's important to like, look at Trump's actions, right? So his first tweet on the second, you know, I think pretty clearly was aimed at domestic audiences in the U.S., right? I mean, he was saying, we support you, we're locked and loaded, but really, I think fundamentally that was, you know, directed internally and it was really directed at Obama, right, for, you know, not being perceived as supporting the protesters in the Green Movement. Right.

And so he did this in 2017 and 2019 as well. And so I think he went back to that playbook really with domestic purposes in mind. And look, I mean there and there is some value in, you know, expressing support for the protests. You know, Obama came out, you know, a couple years out of office and basically said, you know, if he had to do over again, he would've done differently. So, okay. But that was primarily what that is. And I mean, it was very clear at that point there was not a readily available military option for the protestors.

He surged assets into the region. I still don't think there is a readily available option to support the protest militarily, and there is a lot of people advocating for military action, but I have yet to hear a compelling case for how that actually tangibly helps the protestors. Right? There's like, well, you need to do something symbolically, the follow through in your red line or you know, I guess what the Israelis are saying is like, okay, follow through on your red line and take out the missile program.

You know, I think what—Those are really big actions. So it doesn't surprise me that the president is now looking for a diplomatic off-ramp because I think the nuclear options weren't that good, to be perfectly frank. And they clearly lacked an obvious military objective. So the fact that he is looking for the off-ramp, I don't think is necessarily a bad decision.

'cause I think if you put yourself in a war with no points, you know, that's just two wrongs, don't make a right. Now, look. What he should be doing though, that doesn't mean you stand pat, right? I mean, like clearly I think as you're alluding to here, we, there are definitely things we should be doing, including anything we can do on the internet side would've been a huge right now, right?

I mean, and historically this is something that, you know, has been a bipartisan and I think it's success for the U.S. government and, you know, a long-term investment, especially coming outta the Green <ovement, right? So there was more stuff that could be done now in this protest, you know, and there was, you know, a satellite to cell idea.

The things we can make easier, you know, I mean, so there was stuff they could and should have been doing this whole time. I would also argue that engaging in negotiations right now didn't help the protest movement, right. I think very clearly some people thought it was a, worst case scenario, betrayal, you know, but even less than that, you, if you took the error out of the momentum anyway.

I mean, if he, so on the eighth and ninth of this brutal repression, on the 10th, president's calling for negotiations and then he reversed his course, and on the 11th he wants terrorists. And on the 12th he tells to go back to the street by which, at that point, you know, like all the massive killing had been done and so—

I think that wasn't the way to do it now. Okay. So that's where we are. And so I think the reason you're seeing this diplomatic outreach now is I think he's looking for an off-ramp from a military option. And I understand where that's coming from, 'cause I think, like I said, the military options aren't good, but to your bigger question is no, I don't think we can silo human rights off from the rest of the Iran policy.

And you know, the administration was grappling with this. This is something you and I have talked about for years, right. I think what was acceptable diplomatically in 2013, 2014, 2015, when the JCPOA happened is different now, right? I mean, I think there was a credible argument to make that the most pressing issue at the time was, Iran’s nuclear program, was the one that was most tangibly addressable. And at that point, you know, Iranian protestors were now on the street calling for regime change. They're calling for regime reform. And I think that's changed. Now, whether it represents the mass mortality of Iranians or not, I don't know.

I mean, I just don't, you know, like if there's a million people on the street, there's a million people—security apparatus. I don't know what all 90 million of the others think but there's clearly a sizable portion that just is done with the Islamic Republic. So I do think that changes and if you're engaging in diplomacy, you do have to think about the Iranian people and how this impacts them.

And I think, you know, post-October 7th in the Hamas attack, I don't think you could ignore the region as a part of the public state all. So, no, I would say, you know what, what has really changed from 2013 to now is the priority order, right? I mean, it's not that Iran nuclear is not important, it's still important. It definitely is.

But you've just seen these other issues rise up to equal, if not higher than the nuclear issues. So no, this has to be at the core, and I think it's the core part of American values. Whether the president views that way or not, I don't know but it should be, and you just don't see killings like this, really anywhere, and it has to be a core part of what we're thinking and what we care about.

Ariane Tabatabai: Nate, I know you kind of talked a little bit about military option and said that is not really a thing that is either viable or feasible or that would necessarily reach the objectives that we're looking at. But what other options—So you mentioned the internet piece. I'm gonna go back to Iria on that in a second.

But what other options does the president have? If you were doing the thing you've done for years in government and doing options memos, what would it look like right now?

Nate Swanson: Yeah, so I mean, yeah, internet, one. I think two, I mean, just this, I mean, this really was the core moment to do multilateral diplomacy aimed at like shaming, naming, and shaming Iran, right?

I mean—Rarely have you seen such a blatant use of repression and Iran's essentially off the hook now? Right. I mean there is like no repercussions and not that we were perfect in how we handled this in the Biden administration. We certainly weren't, but we were pretty good in ‘22 and ‘23 about making sure that like this was the core focus on Iran in the Mahsa Amini protest.

And we, you know, we used, you know, our multilateral relationships to kick Iran off the Commission on the Status of Women, like make them pay a price for their behavior. And let them know this is not acceptable. And look, yeah. Is Iran afraid of the military attack? Like, more than anything else, but yeah, probably.

But they care about this stuff too, and I think it sends a symbolic message to the people that, like we tangibly are with you and are trying to do things to help. And, you know, I'm not sure all of Iranians support. Okay. So I mean that, so yeah. So multilateral deployments, two, just focused on naming and shaming.

And then look, I mean, I think big picture. If you're gonna engage in diplomacy right now, I think you can only do it one in two ways. You can do it in the very symbolic, transactional, you know, small deal for small deal which was maybe where we land on Friday anyway. It's hard to say, but if you're contemplating big, significant sanctions relief like the was given in JCPOA, like Iran fund—frankly needs to save their economy, then you have to see fundamental changes in Iran, the way Iran treats their people and in their foreign policy.

And that is very different than where we were, you know, at least through, you know, when we stopped JCPOA return negotiations in 2022. So I think that has to, it has to have that longer term impact on your policy.

And maybe the Iranian people don't feel that right away, but it makes it clear that like this, the status quo, Islam Republic is not acceptable long term. So I think those are like the, you know, so it's like a tangible, you know, symbolic in a long-term approach. So basically what I would recommend.

Ariane Tabatabai: Iria, this question of U.S. government and allied government options, Europeans, others, what do you see in your kind of world of, you know, internet access, flow of information that the U.S. and its allies can do to help the Iranian people in this moment?

Iria Puyosa: At the moment, we haven't seen much actually. Just the Freedom Online Coalition who is an organization, the democratic governments worldwide for power, just released it on the statement solidarity that the, with the people of Iran calling the Iranian government to stop the shutdown and restore the connectivity, asking the United Nations to take in consideration the situation and that is it.

So that is the diplomatic response. You put a nice statement out calling that this is a violation of the citizens, Iranian citizens, right? This is against human rights standards, but there's no policy action.

As we use, sadly joke, they are deeply concerned, but ‘deeply concerned’ doesn't help to people on the ground to solve the issue. And that, that, that is the problem is similar to what Nate was saying about military actions. There are not many actions, there is no more other countries can do to solve the problem or connectivity for Iranians.

It's a very restricted space. So it is, there are some proposals about providing connectivity using satellite, but that will be a palliative. It's a small action who may a little bit easier the connectivity for a group of people. Not for the whole population, but won't solve the problem or the restriction since it won't solve other human regulations, were enabled by that, not that connectivity.

So it is really a difficult situation when you had a government who is not responsive to diplomatic pressure. Iran even having a response even to sanctions, to economic sanctions to military so, no, the usual policy instruments are working for this. So the only thing we can do is try to support ways of connectivity like the direct cell initiatives to allow connectivity via satellite to electrical phone smartphones. There are people on the ground hot, but that is—It's going to be a limited solution. It's not a real solution to the problem.

Beyond that, it's very little you can do is you don't persuade the people in power the need to either step down or go for reforms or make some steps toward the normalization of the country.

So understanding this cannot be normal. So there had to be some sort of escalation of pressure moving from these statements to real action. And it's hard to find an actual really—when they are decided to became a state, who really is taking, being close and repression as their identity as you say, they are no hiding.

They are killed, thousand of people. They are no hiding, they are disrupting connectivity. They are no hiding. They are prone to mass human rights violation. So what you have to stay is in that position. They are, the actions are better admitted.

Ariane Tabatabai: There's been a lot conversations around Starlink specifically, and I think part of it is because, you know, I people viewed it as being fairly successful in the Ukraine context, so there's been some discussions about providing Starlink terminals to Iran, although we've seen some jamming of that as well.

Can you talk specifically about Starlink and how much of a solution it can actually provide?

Iria Puyosa: Yeah. The situation in Iran and the situation in Ukraine are fundamentally different. In Ukraine, you have some infrastructure problems, but the government of the Ukraine wanted the connectivity, so they allowed Starlink to operate their airspace and provide that connectivity to people inside.

Okay, so that works. In the case of Iran, the Iranian government is actively jamming the signal from Starlink, preventing those satellites for providing connectivity to the people. Starlink have been trying to find ways to overcome that that they provide days on their, or on their devices firmware to, to pick a way to technically circumvent the—but it's kinda, it's a game.

So they provide, Iran put in place a destruction, Starlink try to address that erosion. The Iran put another like, like another. So it continues to be an issue. Besides that, the level of adoption of that technology is very limited.

It's—not everybody has a Starlink device. Those are expensive. There are difficult to hide. We are seen in Iran, has seen in other countries in which in case of unrest the security forces go after the people who had those devices. And it can be penalized. It can be criminalized to have a device.

So it's more part of the population who had access to this. It presents security risks, is easily disrupted using the jamming. So it really is truly not a solution. It doesn't escalate, it's not permanent. So people may have access for a few minutes get, but they have the people who have been doing that when they had a chance.

They connect, they send some information or got some information, but it's not a permanent solution. The idea or the direct to sell satellite technology is a little bit more, have a farther reach because more people will be able to get, to, get connectivity to the way, because that were not with the, a specific device as the case of Starlink, but with the cell phones, people already had but had to be high in cell phones, relative news. So people, usually less than five years old, high-level smartphones, work with these technology, but that technology is probably also probably also disrupted in some ways.

So it won't be a solution either. It's a way, a little bit better, but it's still not solution because it depends of the control of the Iran had or their space, their territorial their connectivity networks. Which is completely different to the situation of Ukraine, in which Ukrainian wanted that help.

Iran doesn't want that help. People want it, but not the government.

Ariane Tabatabai: Right, right. Okay. I think this is a good place to start to wrap it up. So, Nate, let me come to you for the last question here, which is, where do we go from here? What is next for these protests for the regime? What happens now?

Nate Swanson: Well, I mean, we've been talking for 45 minutes, so in this time it's quite possible Trump has like declared them a federated state of the U.S.

So, look, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think what it means long term is, is that the Islamic Republic as we knew what is not sustainable, right? If you can't meet the basic needs of your people economically, politically, socially, or even militarily at this point, like this can't continue on long-term.

And so, Iran has a couple options. You know, I mean, they can make radical changes to their foreign policy, in their domestic policy, and, you know, maybe the regime would survive in some form. There's no indication that's happening, right? Every indication that we see, like these negotiations, there's like no changes, right?

Iran won't meet directly, has to be Oman, which gives me PTSD, so it doesn't seem like it's happening. So, this is gonna come again, right? In some form or another. And I think, you know, from a U.S. perspective, it, you have to realize that and be realistic, right? I mean, if Iran's willing to kill this way, they can kill, quell future protests to some extent as well.

But it's basically in a death spiral, right? And so how fast that goes is really hard to predict. You know, maybe it's like a couple of weeks, maybe it's like 10 years, and both seem entirely possible at this point. You know, there is an inflection point coming at some point, right? When Khamenei dies, if he dies, you know, who knows at this point, but, you know, at some point, you know, when I started working on Iran, you know, 17, 18 years ago, someone told me, you know, he could die at any point.

So I think that's still true at this point, hopefully, but, you know, he is old, he is sick, and yeah. So it's gonna happen at some point, and frankly, you know, who knows between the U.S. or Israelis, whether they, you know, accelerate that timeframe at this point. So it's really hard to predict but I think that's an inflection point, right? What comes next post-Khamenei?

And I think, you know, it really could go in a number of different scenarios where it's better, you know, better take care of their people better foreign policy or could, or can get worse on all accounts, right? And so to extent we can, the U.S. should be getting ready for that scenario and trying to help sway in a positive direction by making clear what we expect, what we want to see by saying, you know, like, look, we have all this, you know, pressure on you. This is basically, this is actually the real off-ramp. This is your key to functioning country. And then I think, you know, this is very hard to do and very bad at it.

But keeping space for an opposition that emerges. And you know, I mean, Rubio has some really interesting comments on the hill about this last week. They actually were quite sober, right? He's like, I have no idea. He's like, I have no idea what happens if Khamenei were to die. And I actually thought that was kind of a sober and accurate statement.

But then he also said, you know, they expect the change to come from within. So, I think we just need to keep that in mind as you know, I mean, clearly there's a role for the diaspora to play. Clearly there's a role for people on the outside to play, but there, there's also gonna be people within the system are gonna have to have a role as well.

And I think, you know, the end goal is clear how we get there will be up to the Iranian people. But you know, for us the end goal should just be different foreign policy, different treatment of your people and like how we get there. We'll try to support, we'll give you the tools, but fundamentally, it's gonna have to be a change driven by Iranians.

Ariane Tabatabai: Alright. It's a good place to leave it all. Thanks Iria.

Iria Puyosa: Thanks Nate.

Nate Swanson: Thank you.

[Outro]

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