IRAN REGIME RESTRUCTURE — Mojtaba Khamenei recently appointed Hossein Taeb as the head of Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia. This signifies that the regime is reordering its internal security apparatus to be able to crush any future uprisings more efficiently. BabakVahdad— Taeb previously had a decade of experience leading IRGC intelligence, and his appointment decree to lead the Basij is significant as it emphasizes building a granular “popular intelligence network” using mosques, neighborhoods, Basij structures, and technology to detect threats early and shorten the gap between streets and formal security services. Tehran is pushing for a distributed, society-wide internal security model to counter penetration and sabotage vulnerabilities exposed in recent war, potentially blending top-down intelligence with grassroots participation inspired by Khomeini-era ideas. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Taeb’s appointment signals deeper integration between Basij forces and IRGC. Intelligence/operations, likely outsourcing more domestic security duties to the Basij amid regime fears of internal unrest and uprisings. This aims to institutionalize wartime mobilization of the regime’s social base for long-term security, potentially increasing violence if protests arise by arming and deploying less-trained, economically disadvantaged Basij members against the wider population.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ There is no better time than now for any internal and external resistance and opposition groups to take actions on the ground to start the fight in an effort to topple the regime. The longer the resistance waits the harder their fight will become as the regime is actively consolidating and’s creating new ways to suppress any future uprisings. •@HamidRezaAz

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🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran is running the Strait of Hormuz like a nightclub door, and the new appointments in Tehran reveal a regime settling in for a long war Alan Eyre helped negotiate the original nuclear deal as the State Department's Iran hand, and his verdict on its successor is blunt: in Tehran's assessment, the land of milk and honey, the $300 billion reconstruction package, the lifted sanctions, none of it is ever coming. So Iran has stopped playing for a deal and started playing for cash. That explains the strait. Iran already agreed on a traffic scheme with Oman and still keeps the water closed, because a closed strait is pressure while an Iranian-run strait is revenue, a bouncer deciding who enters and who pays. They'll negotiate while fighting, Alan says, but insurance markets have already done what no navy could, and 130 ships a day isn't returning for years. It also explains Monday's six decrees. Five are furniture; the one that matters sends Hossein Taeb, the cleric at the crossroads of military, security, and intelligence, to wire the Basij down to the neighborhood level for a long war. What finally reopens the world's oil artery? "Two words: cash money." @AlanEyre1