Iranian Lawmaker Threatens Iran International

Vahid Jalalzadeh, the chairman of the National Security Committee of the Iranian parliament, said on Saturday the Islamic Republic will provide Iranians with access to the Internet if the European countries cut off “anti-Iran” networks in cyberspace.

Late in September, Iran’s foreign ministry had summoned the British ambassador in Tehran over what it called “a hostile atmosphere” created by London-based Persian media outlets. There are three London-based major Iranian satellite TV channels beaming programs into Iran; Iran International TV, Manoto TV and BBC Persian.

After protests began in mid-September the Biden Administration pledged to help the people in Iran to circumvent Internet filtering as well as providing alternative methods of connectivity as opposed to traditional land and phone line internet.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now considering a bill to support global Internet freedom, following government disruption of access in Iran amid protests.

Authorities disrupt the Internet to prevent news of unrest reaching the rest of the country and abroad, and to prevent protesters from galvanizing support in nearby regions.

Amid heightened restrictions on Internet access following nationwide antigovernment protests, Iranians’ use of VPNs has risen over 3,000 percent in the previous month.

Market analyst Oilprice.com wrote Friday in its ‘Oil and Energy Insider’ bulletin that the decision had “placed the Biden Administration between a rock and a hard place, with oil prices climbing ahead of the mid-terms [November 8 US Congressional elections] and very few viable options to counter it.”

Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Opec+ of “aligning with Russia.” Biden himself said Wednesday the government would release an additional 10 million barrels in November from US strategic reserves, although the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is already at its lowest level, 416 million barrels, since 1984.

The Wall Street Journal piled on criticism with an editorial Wednesday citing earlier lobbying efforts by senior Biden officials to dissuade the Saudis from production cuts. The Journal noted that the prospect of higher gasoline prices before the November 8 Congressional election had “sent the White House into overdrive.” The paper concluded that the Saudis “don’t seem to think risking relations with the US is all that big a deal” and had put “friendly relations with Russia above their ‘reputation’ in the US.”

Biden’s Democrats had been more optimistic, especially as oil prices eased in the summer, over their prospects for the November elections. But even before the Opec+ decision, there were encouraging signs for Republicans, including so-called “election deniers” close to Donald Trump sharing the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

A shift away from the Democrats would likely increase voices in Congress critical of Biden’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). At the same time, reviving the deal, and lifting US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions targeting Tehran’s crude exports, would bear down on oil prices with perhaps an extra 1.5 million barrels a day (b/d) of Iranian oil reaching world markets.

$100 a barrel?

In the meantime, more expensive oil boosts Iranian revenues, albeit on the lower prices Tehran receives from sales of around 750,000-900,000 b/d, mainly to China exported in the face of tightening US sanctions.

In Tehran, Arman newspaper Saturday played down expectations of higher prices, although its headline noted that Opec+ aimed at an oil price of $100 a barrel. The $100 level is built into the Saudi strategic plan, Vision 2030. With the benchmark Brent crude at around $98 a barrel Friday, analysts are unsure how upward price pressure from lower production will balance downward pressure of recession fears.

Biden’s July trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia was widely portrayed as creating a new security alliance directed largely at Iran and extending the ‘normalization agreements’ made with Israel by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But both Saudi Arabia and Israel have refused to follow the US line over Russia, with Riyadh coordinating with Moscow over oil production and the Israelis refusing to supply Ukraine with weapons given their own good relations with Moscow.

Washington broadsheet opinion

The Wall Street Journal, although a staunch supporter of close US ties with the Saudis and critical of the JCPOA, mocked Biden in its Wednesday editorial. “Mr Biden called Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah’ during the 2020 campaign, delayed a planned arms shipment, and continues to pursue a nuclear deal with Iran that would give the Saudis’ main enemy hundreds of billions of dollars to promote terrorism and other trouble. The President had to go hat in hand to the Saudi Crown Prince in July to ask for more oil production, and all he got was a lousy fist bump.”

The Washington Post piled in Friday, with an editorial arguing Biden was “begging foreign dictators to increase production” not only with the Saudis but by “preparing to lift sanctions on Venezuela’s narco-socialist dictatorship.” The Post said the US 264 billion barrels of untapped oil should be “unleashed” by ending Biden’s “war on fossil fuels at home.” Over half these US reserves require fracking, which is banned in much of Europe due to its heavy contribution to global warming, use of toxic chemicals, and seismic unpredictability.

Raisi visited the university on Saturday while anti-government protest rallies were being held on several campuses across the country. 

Al-Zahra University students, who were not allowed in the hall where Raisi was delivering a speech, gathered outside the venue and chanted slogans against Raisi and the clerical regime such as "Raisi, get lost." 

Iranian activists and university professors called for nationwide rallies on Saturday, October 8, as street protests have become sporadic in recent days. In a statement Thursday, professors at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran also urged all students and professors to rally in universities across the country in protest to the plainclothes security forces’ brutal attack on their university’s students October 2.

By noon, videos on social media show police using tear gas near Sharif University, and gunshots are also heard around the university. 

Students, mostly girls, in secondary schools, which only opened a few days ago for the new academic year, rebelled this week in many areas, refusing to attend classes, protesting inside their schools and chanting slogans on their way home. Students often burn the headscarves they are forced to wear, in protest to hijab laws and the killing of Mahsa Amini who was arrested in September for her "improper hijab”.

Iranian authorities have clamped down on the protesters with such heavy methods that even some of their own supporters find it hard to digest.

According to Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces “West” reported that at least 20 Iranian Shahed-136 loitering drones were delivered to the Luninets airfield in Belarus, located around 50 kilometers from Ukraine.

Russia has stepped up attacks by Iranian drones to the interior regions of Ukraine in the past week. Shahed-136 drones are ‘suicide’ unmanned aerial vehicles that are relatively hard to spot and shoot down, although Ukrainian forces have had some success in targeting them in the air.

Some Ukrainian bloggers covering the war expressed concern that the Iranian drones can be used to target Western arms supplies to Ukraine that use land corridors in the west of the country to bring in weapons and supplies.

Iran, a close ally of Russia is under US sanctions for its nuclear program and talks since April 2021 to resolve the issue have failed.

The United States warned in July that Russia was planning to obtain Iranian drones, with its own UAV force not fully capable of performing its war missions.

Several Iranian drones launched from Russian-held territory in Ukraine’s south attacked targets 75km south of Kyev this week. Although some were shot down, the Ukrainian military reported six explosions at a military base in Bila Tserkva.

"Any French visitor, including dual nationals, is exposed to a high risk of arrest, arbitrary detention and unfair trial," read a Friday statement by Paris.

Earlier Thursday, Paris condemned Tehran for airing a video of a French couple, who say they are spies of the French intelligence service.

In order to build a narrative of foreign engendered protests, Iranian state media on Thursday released a trailer of an apparently longer program featuring forced confessions of Cécile Kohler, an educator who heads the teachers’ union National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training (FNEC FP-FO) and her husband Jacque Paris.

In the short clip, they say they are agents of the French intelligence service, and were sent to Iran to prepare grounds for riots. State TV said the two French citizens had entered Iran with "chunks of money ... which was meant to fund strikes and demonstrations." "Our goal at the French security service is to pressure the government of Iran," said Paris in the video.

Moreover, the Dutch government on Friday urged all Dutch nationals to leave Iran and advised against all travel to the country, Dutch news agency ANP quoted Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra as saying.