The United States and Israel continue to pummel the tyrannical regime in Iran. Its leadership has been more than decimated. Its “supreme leader,” Ali Khamenei, was killed in the opening salvo. The U.S. has control of Iranian airspace and Tehran’s navy is “effectively neutralized,” said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
American policymakers have another weapon up their sleeve, which is the Iranian people.
Soon, the U.S. and its allies should work toward empowering the population against its oppressors by restoring internet access and ensuring the ability of ordinary people to communicate and marshal together in collective action. Doing so will produce a “force multiplier” and help average, everyday Iranians coordinate everything from supplies and safety to arranging for the day when the regime falls, which we hope will be sooner rather than later.
According to Netblocks, internet connectivity in Iran has been “flatlining at 1% of ordinary levels” and has largely been offline since the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28.
Epic Fury’s goal is to degrade and destroy the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, which has steadfastly refused to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to launch them against the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Since its birth in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the regime has targeted and murdered Americans and sought the destruction of our close ally, Israel.
But the Islamic Republic’s chief victims have always been Iran’s own people. Iranians have frequently risen up only to be slaughtered in the streets. In recent protests, no fewer than 32,000 Iranians were murdered, and thousands more were detained and are held in danger of execution. Most Iranians loath a regime that has brutally curtailed their freedoms and hindered their economic development. It spends billions of dollars on terrorism instead of investing in the Iranian nation. “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran,” has been a popular refrain in their protests.
Many Iranians would rather see their government spend money on internal development instead of facing sanctions and international opprobrium for backing murderous terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The standard of living for many Iranians has been declining for years, thanks to the regime’s corruption and barbarism.
Iranians have thousands of years of history and a great civilization. The 47-year reign of the Islamic Republic is an aberration.
The U.S. should aid Iranians in their hope of reclaiming their civilization, and it can do so by bringing more Iranians online, giving them the freedom to communicate with each other and with the outside world that their oppressors deny them. The hour to do so is fast approaching.
The Iranian regime’s command and control structure is “in a bad way,” as Caine noted in a March 4 press conference.
The Trump administration sent approximately 6,000 Starlink satellite terminals into Iran in the weeks before Epic Fury started. These were smuggled into the country after the regime’s suppression of protests. Some are reportedly being used now, chiefly by Iranian hackers, but more must be done.
Seizing the information battlespace has been central to the war effort since its beginning, when Iranian state media was taken down by the U.S., and Iranians suddenly found themselves watching President Donald Trump on their TV screens. Trump called on them to seize control of their destiny and “unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.” It was, he warned, a generational opportunity, and they might not get another.
But it has primarily been the regime, not the U.S., that has controlled the airwaves in Iran.
As Annie Fixler, director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, noted: “The authoritarians who control Iran do not want their people to understand how weakened the regime has been by U.S. and Israeli strikes.” The Islamic Republic, Fixler pointed out, fears that its citizens will “demand a government that is responsive to their needs.”
Getting Iranians online will be vital to taking down the regime, but it could also play an important role in preventing the country from descending into greater chaos and unrest, enabling Iranians to coordinate basic everyday necessities. This could pay dividends in preventing the unraveling of the state that some fear.
ISLAMIST BOMBS ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK
Totalitarian societies thrive by closing doors and shutting down thought. They fear free speech and debate. This is why propaganda has always been central to them. For example, Khamenei, in his last speech, asserted that it was the U.S. that was “in collapse.”
Khamenei’s bluster was a projection of his own regime’s dire condition. To ensure its demise, the U.S. must work to let Iranians hear the truth.
