Islamic Republic Enlists Foreign Students As Ideological Ambassadors

In response to the alarming weather conditions, the Meteorological Organization issued red flood warnings for seven provinces on Monday. The affected areas are primarily near the Zagros Mountain range, including Khuzestan, Ilam, Fars, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Bushehr, Lorestan, and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces.

Over the past two days, heavy rainfall has disrupted communication routes in cities across Khuzestan, Lorestan, and Ilam, prompting authorities to close schools in these regions. In Ilam, educational institutions were shuttered for the afternoon shift due to continuous rainfall.

Fars News Agency reported a crisis unfolding in Ilam, attributing it to inadequate management at the provincial level. The delayed announcement of the closure of educational centers left students and teachers either stranded in schools and universities or caught in floods on the streets.

As of now, there are no reported casualties from the flooding.

In Ahvaz, floodwaters have reached parking lots and city buses. ILNA news agency reported the overflow of sewage during the recent rains, attributing it to the poor implementation of Ahvaz's sewage system. Local authorities, however, deny the crisis, describing the flooding of streets as "normal."

In Lorestan province, routes to at least 39 villages have been blocked due to flooding, according to the governor's office report. Moreover, snow has started falling in the highlands of Lorestan province.

The recurring pattern of severe weather incidents, coupled with a lack of effective response from the flood warning system and emergency teams, continues to pose a significant challenge with no solution in sight.

Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander and a power insider in Tehran, threatened on Sunday that “New fronts will be opened in the Gaza war, and if the situation in remains grave, it would be impossible to prevent reactions by Muslim youth.”

Rezaei, who was speaking to Iran-affiliated Al Mayadeen television, hinted at other groups of the “Resistance Front” getting involved in the war and insisted that Israel will be defeated. Other Iranian officials have made similar claims since Israel launched its attacks on Gaza after Hamas’ October 7 terror attack. However, so far, the Iranian regime has not used its own military forces to respond to Israel.

Khamenei appealed to Muslim states with political ties with Israel on Sunday to at least cut them for "a limited time", state media reported on Sunday, weeks after he called for an Islamic oil and food embargo on Israel.

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"Some Islamic governments have condemned Israeli crimes in assemblies while some have not. This is unacceptable," Khamenei said before reiterating that the main task of Islamic governments should be to cut off Israel from energy and goods.

"Islamic governments should at least cut off political ties to Israel for a limited time," Khamenei added.

This was a substantial climb-down for a man who has made Israel’s destruction the main ideological linchpin of his 34-year rule. The fact that Iran’s most powerful proxy military group, the Lebanese Hezbollah, has refrained from starting an all-out war against Israel, as Hamas faces a dire situation in Gaza, is another clear sign that Tehran is unwilling to risk everything at this stage.

In the meantime, Iran’s rulers have succeeded in securing the release of as much as $17 billion dollars that was blocked in South Korea and Iraq because of US sanctions. The Biden administration began approving the release of the funds from June, despite domestic opposition, and approved another big chunk this month, as the war raged in Gaza. The most astonishing aspect of Washington’s decision is that it came amid almost daily attacks by Iranian proxy militias on US military bases in Iraq and Syria.

It is not clear if this concession by the Biden administration is what keeps Tehran hesitant to expand the conflict, or it simply feels unease given its precarious situation at home. Since the United States imposed sanction in 2018, Iran faces an intractable economic crisis, which in turn has led to public anger and rounds of protests. The Islamic Republic faces political instability, with the ever-present specter of more popular protests.

After decades of calling for Israel’s destruction, the Islamic Republic seems to have shied away from military assistance to Hamas and is calling for a ceasefire. On Monday, President Ebrahim Raisi wrote to leaders of 50 countries asking them to use their influence to end the fighting. These included, the leaders of China, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Kenya and Jordan. Once again Raisi asked these countries to impose economic sanctions on Israel.

However, during a joint summit between members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League in Saudi Arabia's capital on Nov. 11, Muslim states did not agree to impose wide-ranging sanctions on Israel, and Raisi had to put his name to a joint statement that actually endorsed a two-state solution – or Israel’s right to exist.

The revelation stems from a survey conducted by MP Jalal Rashidi Kouchi who calculated that if the minimum monthly price of a VPN in Iran is $2, citizens would be compelled to spend around $480 million annually on these tools to circumvent regime bans on the likes of Instagram and Whatsapp.

He also estimated that the shutdowns on popular apps used for social networking and e-commerce cost the public an additional $400 million.

In September, Yekta Net Advertising Company published a report estimating the market volume of circumvention tools in 2022 to be between $500 million to $600 million. According to the report, 80% of Iranians use VPNs to access social networks, while the Islamic Republic currently restricts access to major international social networks and messaging platforms.

Estimations of VPN sales in Iran in recent years have been approximations due to a lack of transparent data. The estimates typically focus on the direct costs citizens pay to bypass censorship, overlooking government expenses in equipping and maintaining the online censorship system.

Despite the controversies, officials from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, including Minister Isa Zarepour, have consistently rejected published statistics on the matter, avoiding responsibility.

According to Freedom House, Iran was the Middle East's worst country for internet freedom in 2023, its rating worsening in the wake of the Women, Life, Freedom uprising. 

Iran-backed militias have been targeting American forces almost daily for over a month, totalling 61 attacks in which at least 59 staff have been wounded. They say their operations are in support of Palestinians and will continue as long as the United States backs the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

In response, the Biden administration has so far approved three airstrikes on IRGC-affiliated facilities in Syria, the last of which on 12 November killed “seven militants”, according to US officials.

“Are we trying to deter future Iranian attacks like this,” a Pentagon official told the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. “There’s no clear definition of what we are trying to deter.”

As Iran uses the war in Gaza to fuel its proxies' actions against its archenemies Israel and the US, regime rhetoric is relishing the opportunity posed by the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7. Thousands of terrorists invaded Israel killing at least 1,200 mostly civilians in the single most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust. While Iran denies involvement, it funds the group tens of millions each year and supports it militarily.

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“We have seen the first stage of expansion of the scope of the war by the resistance groups who make their own decisions,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian Monday, distancing himself from the proxy attacks on Israel and the US which have come from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

“And if the possible scenarios to stop the crimes of the Zionists do not come to fruition, we will probably witness a new situation in the region,” he warned. On Sunday, Iran's Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, admitted hijacking what it had believed to be an Israeli-owned ship while on Monday, the situation on Israel's northern border had escalated under its proxy Hezbollah.

The Biden administration is mindful of not escalating the conflict and turning it into a full-scale regional war that would inexorably drag in American troops. They have warned Iran and its proxies many times that the United States will not tolerate attacks on its forces and would retaliate. Warships and troops have also been brought to the region to deter further aggression, yet the attacks are continuing unabated.

However, if the attacks on US bases carry on at the current rate, it is only a matter of time before US military personnel get killed, forcing the administration to react.

Some in Washington say Biden's softly-softly approach has emboldened the regime, not least since the recent hostage deal which saw five unlawfully detained US-Iranians released in exchange for the freeing up of $6bn of frozen Iranian funds in south Korea and a possible $10bn more in the offing.

Many attacks on US troops are carried out by one-way drones, which Iran manufactures on a large scale, even giving them to Russia to be used in its war against Ukraine.

“They keep shooting, waiting for us to respond. We don’t, so they keep shooting,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of the Armed Services Committee. “Our posture has to be a little more aggressive than just strictly defensive, because one of these days, we’re going to miss one of those drones.”

During a recent meeting with Abdul Basit Emami, the Acting Head of Migrant Affairs at the Afghan Embassy in Tehran, Taliban officials expressed concerns about Iranian policies. They raised issues regarding restrictions imposed on Afghan citizens in certain provinces, highlighting the prohibition of employment opportunities, such as roles as sellers or apprentices.

Mohammad Hosseini, the representative of Bushehr in the Supreme Council of Provinces, quoting Solat Mortazavi, the Minister of Labor, emphasized that “five million jobs in Iran are currently monopolized by Afghan citizens,” a point of contention for those who argue Iranians should be employed amidst a national depression.

The figure is particularly significant considering the reported 8.4 million Afghan nationals residing in various provinces. Despite the high unemployment rate in Iran, experts argue that there is no imperative need for foreign labor at the present rate.meanwhile professions such as nursing and teaching remain in dire short supply as Iranians migrant in unprecedented numbers.

In the meeting, Taliban officials underscored the importance of facilitating the issuance of driver's licenses for migrants and establishing a suitable mechanism for legal matters related to property ownership. They urged Iran to prevent the forced expulsion of migrants possessing legal documents and residence permits. However, reports suggest that the number of migrants with legal residence permits in Iran is relatively low.

The Iranian government is currently facing criticism for what some perceive as a lenient approach towards Afghan refugees. Political opponents of the government have repeatedly warned against its "open borders" policy, raising concerns about potential hidden agendas such as rallying more pro-regime support. In response, the government has accused critics of promoting "Afghan-phobia".