Lawfare Daily: Iran Protests and Internet Shutdown

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That's my orchestra of rubber ducks playing for me whilst I stoke in a bottle bar. Yes, I have rubber ducks playing for me. I wish I could tell you that checking all tax and making any claims on the HMRC felt like this. But I won't go that far. Although it is easier and it will make you feel that little bit more on it. For your money and tax, download the HMRC app and be on it today. You're on it. People living in different regions of the country, or even in the sales cities, but in the different areas of the city, can communicate with the show that they don't know what is happening in other areas of the city that make it more difficult to coordinate protests or even to protect the service from police security repressions. So that is what is happening now in Iran. It's the Law Fair podcast. I'm Ariane Tbadawai, Public Service Fellow here at Law Fair. With Nate Swanson, Senior Fellow and Director of the Iran Strategy Project, I had the Atlantic Council and Iria Puyosa, Senior Research Fellow, and Democracy and Tech Initiative also at the Atlantic Council. 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 recognize in that reform is basically impossible under the current scenario. Today, we're talking about the protests in Iran, the brutal regime crackdown during their lengthy internet shutdown and the US response to it. 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 protests started on December 28, thousands of people with estimates ranging from about 10,000 to 30,000 people have been killed. These numbers, it's important to highlight surpassed the Tiananmen Square massacre. Nate, I want to start with you and ask you to do a little bit of a sit-rep. Tell us about these protests. How did it all start? Yeah, thanks for having me on it. I mean, I think you can look at these protests in three unique phases here. At first, you had just purely what was happening inside Iran. They started on the 28th over, they were sparked by economic protests, the changing and the currency. You had different merchants in the bizarrely protesting. That was very much about economic issues, but then it all quickly spread. It's also spread to all 31 provinces. We have a pretty quickly and it came much more widespread. As we've seen in past surrounding protests, it went from whatever sparked it. In this case, economic issues to much broader political and social issues. I think this protest may be two or three of the past ones had a different tenor than what we saw back in 2009. It had a much stronger anti-regime focus. You had a lot of death to hominate chance. The people on the street saying they don't want to regime reform anymore. They want to regime change. That was a unique focus. I think that was phase one. At that point, it was unclear what the impact would be. I think it was different from the 2017 or 2019. At that point, you couldn't say. I think this will be the same impact in 2022. You know, widespread, lots of fervor, but not really getting the mass numbers in Tehran that you would have seen in 2009. Then I think you have outside interventions. So like, phase two, this is the president basically says we're locked and loaded, ready to protect protesters. And I think that added some fervor into people to the streets. You know, you combine that with the reservoir, these calls to protest on the seventh and eighth. And I'll send these to like a significantly different form. You know, the numbers are unclear how many came out on the eighth and ninth. You know, I mean, we could talk about that in a second, but you know, but the clearly higher numbers and clearly more widespread than anticipated. And then that really goes in 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, you know, Masha, a media protest, I think like 550 people were killed. You know, 2017 and 2019, I think there was maybe up to 1500 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're less than 100 for the green movement protest. And if you go back to like the first big anti, you know, government protests in 1999, not the first one, but like a really, you know, pivotal one soon, the process 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 protest didn't stop, but they fundamentally changed. You know, you no longer have mass movements on the street. You have much more spread, I can often you have people chaining from their houses and stuff like that. And so from what is at that point now, you just don't have people willing to move and willing to mobilize knowing that the repression is so severe. And I think 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 three phases were in. And it is very different. Yeah, that's that's a super helpful kind of breakdown of what we've seen so far. Now we've been talking a little 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 going to 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? 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, right? We have, you know, the siege militias, which are, you know, kind of a federated movements of, you know, a 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. I think you're really seeing all three of those who involved in the crackdown. And that, you know, that tolls up to over a million people, right, across the country. So 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 it's happened. But it's very clearly, you know, a strong political decision to change tactics on eight to ninth, once, you know, paladie and Trump in certain self to just kind of let this being kind of like not overreact to, you know, this massive crackdown. So I mean, there's clearly a political level on top of that, the change tactics at that point. But yeah, the security apparatus is like all three of those functions. 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? Yeah, you would assume that it's, you know, the Supreme Leader himself who is making these decisions, ultimately. And I think you saw, you know, his, you know, the SCNS Supreme Council for National Security, you know, all eight layers, Johnny came out very, very clearly and said there was no tolerance for, I think, you know, it's the first edition that this is all, you know, a form back coup. And so, you know, you kind of have him as a person representative, making it clear that this is a Supreme Leader, you know, top of the government order, which was a big shift because I think in the early week, you saw both the Supreme Leader himself and certainly the president, the president, the Zeshian saying like, oh, you know, the Bazaaris have a 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, the Supreme Leader has come out and, you know, been very clear that he was behind this decision and you know, blaming it on, you know, for an influence, your US, Western, et cetera. So, yeah, I mean, he's clearly the key person behind all this. Ariel, 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, all of us have a very good sense of what that actually means in practice, like how does it work? So, can you two like a little, you know, internet shutdown for dummies for us? How does it work? What is it? Well, Ariel, an internet shutdown is basically cutting off the connectivity for people inside the region, area, at 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 side of the providers. In the case of Iran, that is facilitated because of the, the rigging control of the telecommunication infrastructure and the access to internet in general. So, they are able to disrupt the network in several ways. So, in this case, they started by trolling the connectivity that means making it so slow, it's still there, but it's un usable. It's hard for people to use for the way people would like to use during protests, it's all adding video, all adding image, like streaming the protest. Those kinds of communications can be done when they slow down the connectivity as the levels were no, no enough for all loading video. That is a way to do it. It's not as radical, the connectivity is still there, but Iran did that at the beginning of the, of the unrest. But they, they move it to, that's the, disconnect all communications, even phone communications, SMS, communications, but we hear, they call people say, test messages. So, all, all these scenes who were in telecommunications network were disrupted in Iran. In the case, that is not necessarily sophisticated, but it's a, as a way of scale, it's a massive, a, a 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. See, it allowed those human rights, be elected on the level of crowd down, they were describing. There is a lot to happen with how 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, or even in the same cities, but in the different areas of the city can communicate with the shoulder. They don't know what is happening in other areas of so thought that made more difficult to coordinate protests or even to protect the service from police security repression. So, that, that, that is what is happening now in Iran. 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? And do we have any kind of historical precedents 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? We see, we see internet shutdowns in other other regions of the world. We have seen internet shutdowns in Latin America and in Africa. There are ongoing internet shutdowns at the moment in India, for instance. In years is the country on the world in which we more often see international down. Nor related with protests, but for different resources is, is a very complex situation in India because there are very different resources for ongoing regional shutdowns. But we had the case of Ethiopia in which the countries with an armed conflict having a most three years on an internet shutdown in a regional country. We saw recently during residential elections in Uganda with the internet was shut down for four days. So that we have seen this shut downs during protests in Venezuela or Cuba. So Belarus, Sanol country who has seen the kind of government overreach, overreach, cutting population from the connectivity in moments of political unrest. So that is not unprecedented. Iran had done it. Iran did in 2019. Iran did in 2022. But what made this particular shut down interesting is no this unit is no this locality first time that did or other countries did it is the organization around the shut down. They are not thinking about this shut down as something just in time. People are protesting with God of the internet. The internet is going to get bad when the protesters are repressed and people go back to their homes. That is usually the logic. That is what the repressor attempt to do what they do at Chata. They wait until the repression do their work. People get too afraid to feel for a being killed in this case. The number of killings is substantial. So the expect people to get back home and the connectivity is restored. That is what usually happens. It is not what is supposed to be happening here. Because the Iranian authorities had already said very explicitly that they are not thinking about restoring 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. The plan is to have a sort of internet for Iranian people in which they can use so the service we are facilitated by the interlay connection but within the country so they can visit government sanction it. Allow it for the government to use a website like banking for instance. Public service, e-government services that cannot since are supposed to be allowed with the future they are talking about March as the moment in which that connectivity that is a direct connectivity will be back. That is not very common. There are very few countries that can not see this but that would call it the national internet. We have seen that in China or in China with a great far world they allow us to do that. We have seen that in Cuba and with the source of internet too. The Korea had that so we are talking about very highly repressive, close societies. The issue is Iranians are already connected. Iranians are the global digital economy. Even though this is a repressive regime it is a regime who had trade with other countries. The Iranians had communication with people from other countries with business, they can share knowledge, enjoy cultural groups from other countries. That is way more harder. When people are really used to the connectivity to lose that connectivity. That is what Iran is trying to do here. That is what is considered unprecedented and is really different than what has been seen in other places. You mentioned this notion of the internet. 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 basically how much weight should we put on this notion of an internet actually being feasible this time around? I remember going back over a decade at this point where they have kind of not talked about this notion. They have been talking about this notion. They have been preparing technically to make this possible. As I mentioned earlier, the control they had or the internet providers, the telecommunications, the control of large amounts of connectivity, a state company, state provider but they also are forcing foreign companies to provide internet access to comply with these rules. They had a strong control of that infrastructure and the potential for connectivity. They had the technical elements to do that. The issues is more of they don't have these services. As a matter of fact, China can do that because China had its huge economy. They had their own providers for whatever you needed. They had that digital economy with China and allowing only certain connections with Oxide. It is not a case for Iran. It is more in need to have a change with other countries. It is going to be more difficult. The ecosystem of applications, people are used to social media. I had no similar offers. China had. Those more social cultural factors and economic factors are the barriers for this to be really effective. We are going to be able to maintain that blockage or connectivity with the Oxide internet. The open free global internet and restriety people to a national internet. Thanks, area. For at least clarifying all of these for me because I've been struggling with understanding what this all actually means. Let me come back to you. With all of the caveats that we are still learning a lot and we don't have a full picture because of everything you just talked about. But to the extent that we do know, where do the protests stand now? I feel like the issue of the protests 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 US and Iran. So what's going on domestically? Yeah, thanks. It's a really good question and it's hard to totally know. I think we're in this phase where Iran is retaking control of the streets through the GIME. 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 how bad it is for average every day of Iranian. So just coming into the protests and I probably should have touched on this earlier, we're looking at food prices are up 75% last year. Inflation, I think was above 40% last year and it was above 30% like 6 or 7 straight years. You just can't buy bread literally anymore. I mean, or a bag of rice. This is not sustainable. The protests have been quelled for the moment, I think. It doesn't seem like there's large-tailed demonstrations. The Iranians have control of the streets. Despite Trump's urging, no one has taken over control of government buildings, we're aware of. But we're kind of back where we were on December 27th where this is just a power kick waiting to blow again. And so I think that the time between protests is probably going to be lower at this point, even with this killing. These things used to happen every 10 years. And then, you know, like, you know, 1999, 1999, and then all of a sudden, you know, it was like 2017, 2019, 2022, 25, 26. So I mean, I think that, you know, this, this is if the things don't radically change with Iran's foreign policy and domestic policy, which I don't see happen in short term, like this is going to happen again. So I think this, this general dissatisfaction is going to continue. And I think it's noteworthy, although I know this is somewhat controversial in some cars. 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 Moose-Saviti, you know, the green movement leader of 2009, he's a prison. You know, he basically said, you know, like this is it. There is no legitimacy left for the government. They need to step down. And I know he's some people in the opposition and the Asperer here, you know, just credit him and say, subscribe, be quiet. But like this is this is difference. 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 recognize in that reform is is basically impossible under the current scenario. And so I think that that is the currently of the land as I read it. But look, if we were in government working together, I've been asking you this question. So I mean, why don't you tell me and you know that are the night. Because I've been reviewing you. I'm also worried because I'm telling you answers. I'm like, wait, no, are you going to know this but I'm not you? 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, you know, thousands of thousands of people arrest that thousands of thousands of people. You have a 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 doesn't say 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 do you, how did you see that kind of that comment that is strike to you as? Yeah, extremely right. I mean, it almost feels there's no coming back from this, right? And I think that into some extent they're owning it. The fact that they can't reform in a way that's going to meet the needs of their people, I think it like matters, right? And so it does feel different. And it does feel like in the Islamic as we public as we knew it is no longer be the same, right? Whatever like legitimacy that was there in a social contract between aromites 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 the same place to be frank. And I do think that that is different. And yeah, the fact that they're running government is acknowledging five, I mean, these different numbers, different places. But at one point they acknowledge five thousand people that were killed. I mean, there's just staggering. And yeah, I think it's definitely different. And yeah, I don't see really how they recover from this long term. In a world of noise and uncertainty, IG is the investment platform that backs you. Take your reflexible stock's iser, which gives you the freedom to withdraw funds any time and replace them in the same tax year, all without losing your 20,000 pounds tax free allowance. And if that's not enough, pay no commission on your stock shares and ETFs when you invest with IG. IG, trade, invest, progress. Your capsules at risk other fees me apply tax to me depends on individual circumstances and a subject to change. That's my orchestra of rubber ducks playing for me whilst I so can a bottle bar. Yes, I have rubber ducks playing for me. I wish I could tell you that checking all tax and making any claims on the HMRC app felt like this. But I wouldn't go that far. 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But I want to 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? Yeah, typically it's not what happens and it is one of the reason why authoritarian regimes are worried to go to an Internet. Because they are also affected. Goblin business are affected. People in, we are parody regained it. Their families are also affected. That is what usually happens. It's no happening here. And that is what made this case particularly troubling or particularly interesting for people studying Internet shutdowns. And I speak about that idea they've been preparing organizationally to make this at the status schools. Iran have been working in creating a sort of two-tier system in which the Internet is shutting down completely for the majority of the population, the majority in mean 99% or more of the population that don't have access to the global Internet in this system. But a few people who are part of the core elite of the regime does. And that is what's happening here. The envisioning a system in which some users, some information have been flowing around say that 16,000 people. I don't know for sure how this number came out. That has exactly 16,000. It's 20,000. It's 10,000. We don't know for sure. But the fact is they are a group of people who are part of the elite in Iranian government who did have access to Internet at the moment. It's like a print of technically they have been provided in sync cards for their phones who are while 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't kid a connectivity for a elite and the rest of the population has got out, is kind of novel. So having that two-tier system thinking about making this the statuic school, making this the permanent solution to this problem of, yeah, the government also need the Internet to conduct business. They are trying to solve that. How stable is a system in which it's so 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 an organizational, as an authentic part of the way the Iranian state conduct business, natural and international. Thanks, area. I want to turn to the United States and US policy and US 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 going to 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 protests 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 kind 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 US policy, which has kind of siloed those issues from the nuclear issue and pursued these different tracks? Or do you think going back to the point that this is really different that we should be maybe kind of doing all of those things at the same time and not kind of creating those divisions, these different lanes that have to pickly existed? Yeah, I think so. Let me, I'm going to 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 he has first tweet on the second, you know, I think pretty clearly was aimed at domestic audiences in the US, right? I mean, he was saying, you know, we support you were 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's and there is some value and, you know, like expressive 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 definitely 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 options for the protesters. He surged assets into the region. I still don't think there is a readily available option to support the protests 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 protesters, right? There's like, well, you need to do something symbolically to fall through in your red line or, or, you know, I guess what the Israelis are saying is like, okay, fall to in your red line to get the missile program. You know, I think that those are really big actions. So it doesn't surprise me that the president is now looking for a diplomatic off-front because I think that the option just weren't that good to be perfectly frank. And they clearly lacked an obvious military objective. So the fact that he's looking for the off-front, I don't think is necessarily a bad decision because 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, there are definitely things we should be doing, including anything we can do on the Internet side with a huge right now, right? I mean, historically, this is something that has been a bipartisan and I think it's a success for the US government and, you know, a long-term investment, especially coming out of the Green Movement, right? So there was more stuff that could be done now in this protest, you know, and there was a satellite to sell idea, the things we could make easier, you know. I mean, so there was stuff that 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 took the air out of the momentum anyway, right? I mean, on the 8th and 9th of this brutal repression, on the 10th president's calling for negotiations, and he reversed his course and on the 11th, he wants terrorists and on the 12th, he tells him to go back to the street. I wish that point, you know, like all the massive killing it and done. And so, you know, 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 the military option. And I understand where that's coming from, because I think, like I said, the military options are 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 is 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 JPOA, J.S. Goa 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 protesters 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 plurality of Iran 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 on the security apparatus, I don't know what all 90 million of the others think. But, but there's clearly a size of proportion 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 also. No, I would say, you know, what was 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 issue. So no, this has to be at the core. And I think it's the core part of American values, whether the President is that way or not, I don't know, but it, but it should be. 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. 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 miss necessarily reach the objectives that we're looking at. But what other options, so you mentioned the internet piece, I'm going to go back to area on that in a second, but what other options does the President have, if you were doing the thing you've done for years and government and doing options memos, what would it look like right now? Yeah, so I mean, yeah, Internet one, I think too, 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 had you seen such a blatant use of repression in 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 and the mass immunity protest. And we, you know, we used the, you know, our multi-level relationships to kick Iran off the commission on the status of women, like make them pay a price for their behavior. Let them know this is not a simple and look, yeah, it's a ron afraid of a military attack, like more than anything else, be out probably, but they care about this stuff too. And I think it's in the symbolic message, the people that like tangibly are with you are trying to do things to help. And, you know, I'm not sure all a running sport. Okay, so I mean that so yeah, so multilateral diplomacy be to just focused on naming and shaming. And then look, I mean, I think big picture, if you're going to engage in diplomacy right now, I think you can only do it one or two ways. You can do it in the very symbolic transactional, you know, small deals for small deal, which was maybe where we land on Friday. Anyway, it's hard, 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 to bushes in 2022. So I think that has to be it has to have that longer term impact on your policy. And maybe there are people don't feel that right away, but it makes it clear that like this status quo, but as long as the public is not acceptable long term. So I think there's like that, you know, so it's like a tangible, you know, symbolic in a long term approach to basically recommend. Are you on this question of US 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 US and its allies can do to help their Iranian people in this moment. Well, at that moment we haven't seen much actually use the freedom of like coalition who is a, the organization, the democratic governments were wild for our power of just a release it and statement. So solidarity with the people of Iran calling the calling the Iranian government to stop the shutdown and restore the connectivity asking the United Nations to to to to inconsecidate the situation and that is it. So that is the diplomatic response response you put a nice statement statement out calling get this is a this is a violator of the citizens, Iranian citizens right this is against human rights standards, but it's no policy action. So as we use use sadly joke they are deeply concerned, but difficult cell doesn't help to people in the ground to solve the issue and that that that is the problem is similar to what they was saying about military options there are no many options. There is no more other countries can do to solve the problem of connectivity for the audience is a very it's a very restricted space or is there are some proposals about providing connectivity using satellite, but that will be a palliative is a small actual who may a little be easier. So the connectivity for a group of people know for the whole population but once all the problem of the restriction. The same thing it was all other order human regulations were enabled by that that connectivity so it is really a difficult situation when you had a government who is no response to diplomatic pressure. So it's not having a response even to sanctions to economic sanctions to military. So no the usual policy instruments are working for for the so the only thing we we can do is try to support ways of connectivity like the the the the Excel initiative to allow connectivity via satellite. So it's not a very important thing to do is to support the people in the ground but it's going to be a limited solution is not a real solution to the problem. Beyond that is there a little you can do is you don't persuade the people in power they need to either stay down or go for a form so may some steps to the normalization of the country so understanding this cannot be normal. So they 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 good when they are decided to be keen and stay who really is taking being close and repression as their identity. And you say they are no hiding they are killing thousands of people they are no guiding they are distracting connectivity they are no hiding they are prone to a massive human rights violations so when you had a stay who is in that position they are the options are better limited. So I think that's a lot of conversations around starling specifically and I think part of it is because you know I people view that as being fairly successful in the Ukraine context so there's been some discussions about providing starling terminals to Iran although we've seen some jamming of that as well. Can you talk specifically about starling and how much of a solution it can actually provide. Yeah the situation in Iran and the situation in the UK are fundamentally different in Ukraine you have some infrastructure problems but the government of the Kenya wanted the connectivity so they allowed Estonia to operate their airspace and provide that connectivity to people inside the UK. So that was in the case of Iran the Iranian government is actively jamming the signal from starling as preventing those satellites for providing connectivity to the people. Estonia have been trying to find ways to overcome that jamming that they provide updates on their devices firmware to take away to technically circumvent the jamming but this is a game so they provide Iran put in place as destruction. Estonia try to address the erosion the Iran put another layer another so it continues it continues to be an issue besides that the level of adoption of that technology is very limited. There's no no everybody had that the starling device those are expensive there are difficult to hide. We are seeing it in Iran and 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 is it can be criminalized to have that device. So it's a small part of the population who had access to these. It was a security race is easily disrupted using the use using the jamming so it really is really no solution. It doesn't escalate it's not permanent so people people have may had access for a few minutes get the guy they have the people polluted you have been doing that when they had a chance they connect they they they sent some information or got the show information but it's no permanent. It's no permanent solution the idea of the directs to sell satellite technology is a little bit more. I have a farther rich because there are more more people will be able to get and to get connectivity to the way because that were know with the with a specific device as a case of a saline but with the cell phones people already had. But had to be a high in cell phones relatively newest news of people usually less than five years old high high level smart phones we were with this technology but that technology is probably also a food we also disrupted in some way so it won't be a solution either. It's a way a little bit better but it's still not solution because the depends of the control of the Iran had other their their space. The territory where their connectivity networks completely different to the situation of a crane in which you can you want it that hell Iran doesn't want to get the people wanted but not the no the governor 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 what is next for these protests for the regime what what happens now. Well I mean we've been talking for 45 minutes so in this time it's quite possible Trump is like declared them a federated state of the US 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 it is not sustainable right you know if you can't meet the basic needs of your people economically politically socially or even military at this point like this can't continue on long term and so. Iran as 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 some form there's no indication that's happening right every indication that we see like this negotiations that there's like no changes Iran will meet directly. As you know mom which gives me PTSD so it doesn't seem like it's happening so this is going to come again right in some form or another and I think you know from a US perspective it you have to realize that in and be realistic right I mean if Iran's willing to kill this way they can kill well future protests to some extent as well. But it's basically in a desk spiral right and so how fast that goes is really hard 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 hominid dies if he dies you know who knows at this point but you know at some point you know when I start working on Iran you know 17 18 years ago someone told me you know he died any point so I think that's still true at this point hopefully. But you know he's old he is sick and yeah so it's going to happen at some point and frankly you know who knows between the US or Israelis whether they you know accelerate that time frame at this point so this is really hard predicts but I think that's an inflection point right what comes next post hominid and I think you know it really could go with a number of different scenarios where it's better you know better take care of their people better foreign policy or kid or kid work on all accounts right and so. To the extent we can you know us should be getting ready for that scenario and trying to help. A swayed on 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 a functioning country and then I think you know this is very hard to do very bad at that but but but keeping space. For an opposition that emerges and you know I mean Rubio has a really interesting comments on the hill about this last week there should be quite sober right it's like I have no way to do like I have no idea what happens. If hominid were to die you and 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 didn't clearly as a role for the diaspora play clearly as a role for people on outside to play. But there's also going to be people within the system we're going to have to have a role as well right 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 your people and like how we get there will try support will give you the tools but fundamentally it's going to have to be a change during by runnings. Alright so good place to leave it all thanks area thanks Nate. Thank you. The Lawfare Podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute if you want to support the show and listen at free you can become a lawfare material supporter at lawfare media dot org slash support. Supporters also get access to special events and other bonus contents we don't share anywhere else. If you enjoy the podcast please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts look out for our other podcasts including rational security allies the aftermath and escalation our lawfare presents podcast series about the war new crane. Check out our written work at lawfare media dot org. The podcast is edited by Jen Patia and our audio engineer for this episode was Kara Shillin of Gut Rogu our theme song is from Alibi music as always thank you for listening. Seconds that's the difference between life and death. 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