In a major military blow, IRIB says China has cut off satellite imagery the Islamic Republic relied on to track U.S. forces, assess strike damage and plan attacks. That imagery is military intelligence. It can reveal aircraft, air defence systems, troop movements and changes at military bases. After an attack, fresh images help commanders determine what was hit, what survived and whether another strike is needed. Losing that feed leaves the Islamic Republic with weaker targeting and less visibility over the battlefield. The stakes are already clear. In May, the United States sanctioned three Chinese companies for providing satellite imagery that helped the Islamic Republic target U.S. forces. U.S. officials later linked Chinese imagery to the July 17 attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, which killed three American troops. IRIB’s own broadcast says China’s message was blunt: resolve your problem with the Americans first. China appears unwilling to endanger its relationship with the United States to preserve the Islamic Republic’s wartime capabilities. This could become far more dangerous for the regime than the loss of one intelligence feed. China is the Islamic Republic’s most important strategic partner, its main economic lifeline and the buyer of roughly 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s seaborne crude. The regime depends on Chinese intelligence, technology, trade, payments and diplomatic protection. China can replace Iranian oil. The Islamic Republic cannot replace China. Russia is sending a similar warning. It says its relationship with Iran is a strategic partnership, not a military alliance, and that Russian weapons are needed for Russia’s own war first. The Islamic Republic spent years claiming that China and Russia had broken its isolation. It is now learning that neither country will risk its own interests to rescue the regime. Losing Chinese satellite intelligence would leave the Islamic Republic increasingly blind against U.S. forces. A wider collapse in Chinese support would threaten its targeting capabilities, military rebuilding, oil revenue and access to foreign currency at the same time. The regime is losing its battlefield eyes while its economic lifeline weakens. For a system already under military and financial pressure, a serious rupture with China could be catastrophic.

Islamic Republic officials are openly calling for the invasion and occupation of the UAE. Lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani said Iran should seize UAE territory, deploy forces there and keep them in place. He said it could be done easily. Taking and holding UAE territory would require a ground invasion and an occupation force. This is part of a growing pattern. In April, regime strategist Mehdi Kharatian threatened that Iran could occupy UAE territory if the war resumed. In August, Haji-Deligani called for the UAE to hand over land and facilities as reparations. Now he is repeating the demand in public. The UAE was the most heavily targeted country during the war’s first 41 days. Its defense ministry said it intercepted 563 missiles and 2,256 drones, including 537 ballistic missiles. After the Islamic Republic’s forces subjected the UAE to the region’s heaviest barrage, its officials are now demanding UAE land. The threats are tied to strategic pressure. The UAE sits beside the Strait of Hormuz and operates Fujairah, a major oil-export route that bypasses the Persian Gulf chokepoint. Islamic Republic officials portray the UAE’s ties with the United States and Israel as justification for attacks and territorial threats. The regime’s claims are expanding from the disputed islands to the UAE itself. Its officials describe occupation as punishment, deterrence and repayment. The Islamic Republic spent decades claiming to defend the Muslim world. Now its officials are openly discussing seizing a neighboring Muslim country’s land. That is not resistance. It is expansionist coercion.

One of the most heartbreaking moments I have seen throughout this time: A father telling his surviving son that his brother, Mohsen Abbasi, has been killed. Both brothers had been shot during the protests of 8–9 January. One survived. Now he has to hear that his brother did not. A father mourning one son while trying to comfort the other.

The regime is looking north to rescue its oil exports after the blockade shut its Persian Gulf route, but that escape plan is failing too. Before the war, more than 80 percent of Iran’s trade tonnage moved through the Persian Gulf. The blockade has effectively shut Iran’s main oil-export route: no new crude cargo has cleared toward Asian markets since mid-July. August loadings fell to roughly 160,000–255,000 barrels a day, from about 2 million before the war. Trucking oil across borders can move, at most, around 40,000 barrels a day, about 2 percent of pre-war exports. The oil already at sea is running down. The floating stockpile outside the blockade fell from roughly 90 million barrels in mid-July to about 29 million. Meanwhile, usable onshore storage was estimated at around 39 million barrels, with roughly 1.8 million barrels a day of exports displaced. If that estimate holds, Iran could face forced production cuts within weeks. Shutting mature oil fields risks lasting damage. Restarting them is not as simple as turning a tap. The land routes are already jammed. Around 3,700 trucks were backed up at the Turkish crossing, with waits reaching 20 days. At the main Pakistan crossing, about 700 trucks were waiting while around 40 were allowed through. These corridors can keep some trade moving. They cannot replace tankers, deep-water ports or access to buyers and banks. The Caspian is an import route, not an oil-export escape hatch. Northern ports handle only a small share of Iran’s total port capacity, and Caspian vessels carry a fraction of what a large oil tanker can move. The Neka pipeline brings Caspian crude into Iranian refineries. It does not carry southern Iranian oil to China. Iran’s northern routes also depend on neighboring countries, their infrastructure and their willingness to risk sanctions. That is not a reliable substitute for a major export system. The economic pressure is spreading. The free-market rial passed 2.5 million to the dollar in late September, while inflation continues to devastate household purchasing power. Oil and petrochemical revenues face the same export bottleneck. The Islamic Republic is not landlocked. It is export-locked. Its northern corridors can bring in some supplies, but they cannot replace the Persian Gulf route its oil economy depends on. The blockade is trapping the regime’s most important export while its alternatives choke under the strain.

The Islamic Republic regime is so fractured that even who has the authority to negotiate has become a public power struggle. Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader in Mashhad, says Mojtaba Khamenei did not authorize negotiations with the United States. He says the delegation was ordered only to present seven conditions, and that officials who negotiated went against the Leader’s orders. That is a stunning admission from inside the system. Iran’s foreign minister and parliament speaker can meet mediators and discuss terms, but hardliners are publicly disputing whether they have the authority to negotiate at all. The fight is already spreading. Hardline lawmakers have moved to impeach Abbas Araghchi over the New York contacts. MPs have accused Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf of crossing Mojtaba’s red lines on the nuclear file and the Strait of Hormuz. A senior official said the delegation had full authority; IRGC-linked outlets and hardliners insist it did not. The regime cannot even agree on who is allowed to speak for it. The confusion deepened when Bloomberg reported that Araghchi had offered restored IAEA access to bombed sites in exchange for sanctions relief. An Iranian source then denied the report. Offer, deny, disown. A negotiator whose words can be repudiated overnight cannot credibly close a deal. President Masoud Pezeshkian has described a small group of senior officials handling war and negotiations. But even that process does not settle the central question: who has the final authority to commit the regime? Under the Islamic Republic’s system, any agreement ultimately depends on the Supreme Leader. That is where the crisis becomes more serious. Mojtaba Khamenei was named Supreme Leader after his father’s death, but he has not appeared publicly. No authenticated video or audio of him as leader has been produced. Officials say he is issuing orders and meeting leaders; hardliners invoke his authority to veto negotiations. His continued absence leaves the regime’s negotiators unable to prove whose mandate they carry. Alamolhoda’s intervention is not just opposition to one diplomatic move. It shows how the leadership vacuum lets hardliners challenge every concession as disobedience while negotiators claim authority they cannot demonstrate. The result is a regime that can announce conditions, float proposals and denounce talks, but struggles to produce anyone empowered to make a binding agreement. The Islamic Republic is not merely divided over what to negotiate. Its factions are fighting over whether anyone has the right to negotiate in the first place.

Pakistan is moving closer to directly confronting the Iran-backed Houthis, deploying 30,000 to 40,000 troops inside Saudi Arabia as the war escalates. This is not yet a Pakistani invasion of Yemen. The troops are holding Saudi borders and helping intercept Houthi missiles and drones. Their purpose is to protect Saudi territory, oil infrastructure and the Islamic holy sites while Saudi Arabia prepares a major offensive. The ground war would be fought by Yemeni forces under Saudi command, backed by Saudi airstrikes. More than 100,000 Yemeni troops could be mobilized to retake Bab el-Mandeb or attack across several fronts. Pakistan is already enabling that campaign. It sent four cargo aircraft carrying air-defence systems, artillery, drones and anti-drone equipment into Aden. Pakistani military advisers are working with Saudi counterparts supporting Yemeni forces. Turkey has supplied drones, France is reinforcing Yanbu and the United States is providing intelligence and military advice. The Houthis are no longer facing fractured Yemeni forces and Saudi aircraft alone. A wider military architecture is forming against them. Pakistan once tried to rescue the Islamic Republic diplomatically by brokering the Islamabad Memorandum with the United States. Now the same country has joined Saudi Arabia and Turkey in a collective-defence pact that treats an attack on one as an attack on all. Pakistan’s defence minister has declared that any enemy of Saudi Arabia is an enemy of Pakistan. Its military has described the commitment to defend Saudi Arabia and the holy sites as physical, unconditional and absolute. Pakistan has not decided to send combat troops into Yemen, but the operational line is already shifting. Its forces are intercepting Houthi attacks, protecting the Saudi rear and advising the forces preparing to advance. That is military involvement even without Pakistani infantry crossing the border. It also places tens of thousands of Pakistani troops directly in the line of Houthi missile and drone fire. Every successful interception and every Pakistani-supported operation increases the possibility of Pakistani casualties and retaliation. The distance between defending Saudi Arabia and entering the war is rapidly shrinking. A direct Pakistan–Islamic Republic confrontation is no longer unthinkable. The two countries share a volatile 900-kilometre border and exchanged strikes in January 2024. The Islamic Republic attacked targets inside Pakistan with missiles and drones, killing two children. Pakistan retaliated two days later with drones, rockets and stand-off weapons against targets inside Iran. At least nine people were killed. Both sides contained that crisis, but it demonstrated how quickly their relationship can move from diplomacy to cross-border warfare. Pakistan now supporting Saudi operations against the Islamic Republic’s most important remaining regional proxy creates another potential ignition point. If Houthi weapons kill Pakistani troops, strike the holy sites or are traced directly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Pakistan could retaliate against Houthi infrastructure, Iranian-linked networks or targets connected to the weapons pipeline. The Islamic Republic could answer through proxies, border pressure or further support for attacks on Saudi territory. For the Islamic Republic, the danger is political and strategic. Every Houthi missile that lands inside Saudi Arabia now risks activating a defence pact involving nuclear-armed Pakistan. The regime can deny controlling the Houthis, but Pakistan has already warned it to restrain them. The Islamic Republic built its proxy network to surround its enemies while avoiding direct consequences. Instead, its Houthi campaign has helped place tens of thousands of Pakistani troops behind Saudi Arabia, exposed those troops to Iranian-supplied weapons and pushed a former mediator toward the opposing military camp. The proxy was supposed to isolate Saudi Arabia. It is building the coalition that may eventually destroy it.

“They’re just chanting ‘Death to America,’ but they seem friendly at the same time.” That was CNN’s Clarissa Ward describing armed Taliban fighters after they seized Kabul in August 2021. It perfectly captures the network’s approach to Islamist regimes. If the gunmen smile at CNN, their ideology and body count somehow become less important. CNN takes the same approach to the Islamic Republic. It has been at the forefront of whitewashing the regime, trading journalistic independence and objectivity for access, then presenting that controlled access as genuine insight into Iran. The same language appeared again when Erin Burnett recalled Islamic Republic supporters chanting “Death to America” while remaining friendly toward her as an American journalist. There is nothing contradictory about that. Regime supporters can treat a useful Western reporter politely while supporting a system that kills Iranians, arms terrorist groups and plots attacks abroad. Friendliness toward CNN is not moderation. It is media strategy. Foreign journalists do not report freely inside Iran. The Islamic Republic decides who receives visas, where they can travel, what they can film and which officials they may interview. During the 2026 war, CNN received rare access while most Western outlets remained outside and independent Iranian journalists were censored, imprisoned or forced into exile. CNN’s cameras could show government-approved streets, stocked markets and regime supporters. They could not freely enter Evin Prison, follow Basij units or interview the families of murdered protesters without state interference. That is not an open press environment. It is a guided tour. CNN was also at the forefront of whitewashing the January massacre, when regime forces killed over 45,000 Iranians under the cover of an internet blackout. Instead of centring the victims and confronting the regime’s lies, CNN amplified official denials and treated state propaganda as a competing version of events. Christiane Amanpour’s relationship with the regime shows how the arrangement works. Inside Iran, she wears the compulsory hijab because the Islamic Republic would otherwise refuse her entry. When Ebrahim Raisi tried imposing the same condition on her in New York, she refused and the interview was cancelled. The message was clear. Access exists only when the journalist accepts the regime’s terms. CNN then boasts that it has reporters “on the ground” without emphasizing that the ground itself has been selected and controlled by the Islamic Republic. The Taliban tolerated Ward because her camera was useful during their takeover. The Islamic Republic grants CNN access because a Western network can carry its denials and present regime-managed scenes as authentic Iranian life. CNN repeatedly judges Islamist regimes by how they treat CNN rather than how they treat the people trapped under their rule. A polite interview does not erase a prison cell. A smile does not neutralize “Death to America.” Controlled access is not independent journalism.

This is a shameless attempt to fabricate a scandal because neither of you can challenge the actual data. Neither of you has disproved a single number. You saw an Iranian analyst using Iran’s historic flag and manufactured suspicion out of nothing. Kpler is not one guy sitting at home counting ships. It tracks more than 660,000 vessels and processes over a billion AIS signals every day. Its figures are checked against satellite images, ports, terminal loadings, tanker draught, ship-to-ship transfers and deliveries to buyers. One employee cannot make 1.7 million barrels a day disappear. The ships, ports, customers and competing tracking firms would expose it immediately. One of you admits Kpler is reliable and independently corroborated, then suggests manipulation anyway. The other calls it a Western intelligence operation without providing a single piece of evidence. The Lion and Sun shows that this analyst opposes the Islamic Republic. It does not change where tankers are located or how much oil they carry. If the September figure is false, name the tanker that left Iran, crossed the blockade and delivered its cargo. Show the ship, route, terminal or buyer. Until then, this is not analysis. You cannot refute the data, so you attack the analyst instead. That is a textbook genetic fallacy.

The Islamic Republic is losing Pakistan, a once-friendly neighbour that is now aligning against the regime and its Houthi proxy. Pakistan now says it will follow all applicable sanctions regimes against Iran. That is a clear retreat from its earlier refusal to recognize unilateral United States sanctions and its promises to expand trade with the Islamic Republic. The shift is particularly humiliating because Pakistan previously acted as the regime’s diplomatic lifeline. It brokered the June Islamabad Memorandum between the Islamic Republic and the United States, giving the regime an off-ramp from war and isolation. That agreement collapsed, and Pakistan is now moving closer to the states threatened by the Islamic Republic. The military shift is even more damaging. On August 7, Pakistan joined Saudi Arabia and Turkey in a collective-defence pact declaring that an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all. Pakistan has since condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, warned the Islamic Republic to restrain its proxy and pledged to defend Saudi Arabia by “whatever means are available.” Its defence minister went further, declaring that any enemy of Saudi Arabia is an enemy of Pakistan. The latest attack on a power station supplying the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina has hardened that position. Pakistan called it a grave provocation and demanded that the attacks stop immediately. The Islamic Republic spent years using the Houthis to threaten Saudi Arabia while denying control whenever the consequences arrived. That deniability is no longer protecting it. Pakistan now places Saudi security and the protection of Islam’s holy cities above preserving its old relationship with the regime. Pakistan has not severed diplomatic relations, but the direction is unmistakable. A neighbour that once brokered an agreement for the Islamic Republic is now complying with sanctions, joining Saudi Arabia’s defence architecture and warning that it may confront the regime’s most important Arab proxy. The Islamic Republic’s proxy strategy is not expanding its influence. It is turning former partners into potential adversaries.

The regime claims the Supreme Leader appears everywhere, yet cannot produce one authenticated second of him anywhere. Mojtaba Khamenei’s mother-in-law now claims she saw him in “complete health” at his father’s burial. The regime’s own footage shows his three brothers beside the casket. Mojtaba is nowhere to be seen. He was also absent from his wife’s funeral. Seven months after becoming supreme leader, there is still no authenticated photograph, video or voice recording of him. Yet officials suddenly claim he attended a burial and appeared at a public rally without a single camera capturing him. If Mojtaba can spend hours at a shrine or 30 minutes in a public square, he can record a ten-second message. Instead, relatives and clerics keep producing unverifiable stories on his behalf. The regime is manufacturing a political occultation. Mojtaba supposedly governs, appoints officials and directs a war while remaining as invisible as the Hidden Imam. This deception protects whoever is actually exercising power behind his name. If Mojtaba is dead or incapacitated, admitting it would trigger another succession crisis and expose the Revolutionary Guard as the real authority. The Islamic Republic is no longer governed by a visible supreme leader. It is governed by an armed apparatus hiding behind a rumor.

Iranian artists who whitewashed the Islamic Republic to return home are now facing calls for their prosecution and arrest from regime state TV. Some musicians and performers made fawning remarks about the Islamic Republic to regain entry into Iran. Many Iranians condemned them as sellouts who helped sanitize a murderous system, possibly for personal or financial gain. Their capitulation bought them nothing. IRIB, the regime’s most powerful propaganda organ, is now demanding that returning artists be tried. This is not a fringe attack. It comes from the institution responsible for broadcasting the Islamic Republic’s official narrative, extracting forced confessions and publicly destroying its opponents. The Islamic Republic has always treated independent culture as a threat. It has censored music, banned performances, arrested artists and pressured public figures into loyalty. Even submission offers no lasting protection because authoritarian systems demand permanent obedience, not temporary praise. These artists sacrificed their credibility among Iranians to appease the regime. Now the same regime may punish them anyway. They betrayed their audience for access and discovered that loyalty to the Islamic Republic is a one-way transaction.

A Shiite cleric is now inventing sightings of Mojtaba Khamenei because the Islamic Republic cannot prove its supposed leader is alive, conscious or governing. The cleric claims Mojtaba appeared at a loyalist rally in Tehran for half an hour. Yet there is no photograph, video, recording or independently identified witness. Mojtaba has released no authenticated audio or video since being installed after his father’s death. He was not even publicly seen at Ali Khamenei’s funeral. If Mojtaba can stand in a crowded square for 30 minutes, he can record a ten-second message. Instead, officials issue statements in his name while clerics manufacture mystical sightings worthy of the Hidden Imam. The regime is hiding more than one man. It is hiding who actually rules. If Mojtaba is dead or incapacitated, the Islamic Republic faces another succession crisis during war. If the Revolutionary Guard is issuing orders behind his name, the supposed theocracy has become a military regime using an invisible cleric as its mask. A leader who exists only through rumors, intermediaries and unverifiable sightings has no religious or political legitimacy. The cleric is not announcing Mojtaba’s return. He is desperately trying to conceal the empty throne at the center of the Islamic Republic.

President Trump just posted this on his @truthsocial account. "BREAKING: Thousands of Iranians are on the streets preparing to take back their country from the radical Islamists. Why is the Legacy Media not reporting this?"

Days after the British prime minister said there were strong indications of Islamic Republic involvement in the RAF Fairford terror plot, Trump says the Flydubai attack may also have Iranian links. An Omani co-pilot stabbed the captain and sent the Israel-bound aircraft carrying 174 people into a 14,000-foot plunge. Passengers and crew subdued him before the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia. The attacker came from Oman, one of the Islamic Republic’s friendliest and most accommodating regional partners. Asked whether he was connected to Iran, Trump said that based on what he is hearing, “the answer is yes.” The timing is chilling. After U.S. pressure forced countries to block Iranian airlines, Islamic Republic state television aired a plan to make regional air routes unsafe and claimed Iran could disrupt up to 2,500 flights a day. Within days, a plane full of Israelis was nearly brought down and Trump pointed to an Iranian connection. The regime’s threats against civilian aviation must now be treated as a global security threat. The Islamic Republic has already demonstrated its contempt for civilian lives in the sky. The Revolutionary Guard shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 in 2020, killing all 176 people aboard. Its threats against civilian aviation can never be dismissed as empty rhetoric.

The United States is positioning overwhelming firepower around Iran for possible post-midterm strikes. By late November, the force could include three carrier strike groups, two amphibious ready groups, 120 to 140 carrier-based aircraft, more than 4,000 Marines and hundreds of missile-launch cells aboard their escorts. Two carriers are already operating in the Arabian Sea. The George Washington and George H.W. Bush bring roughly 80 to 90 strike aircraft, electronic-warfare jets, surveillance aircraft and heavily armed escorts. The Boxer amphibious group adds around 2,200 Marines and the ability to conduct raids, evacuations and limited coastal operations. The Theodore Roosevelt left the United States on September 27 with another carrier air wing. The Makin Island amphibious group followed with more than 2,000 Marines. Their transit times point to arrival between late October and November. If all five groups overlap, the United States would gain enough firepower to intensify airstrikes, launch large Tomahawk salvos, suppress air defences and conduct limited raids. This is not an invasion force. Two Marine units cannot occupy Iran. Their role would be to widen Trump’s options around ports, islands, missile sites and the Strait of Hormuz while the carriers deliver sustained air power. The timing is the clearest signal. The full force would assemble after the November 3 midterm elections. Trump has rejected the Islamic Republic’s seven-day ceasefire proposal and publicly acknowledged that renewed large-scale bombing after the vote is possible. His administration has also sought to keep the war quieter before the election. One uncertainty remains. The Theodore Roosevelt was originally expected to replace the George Washington. If that rotation proceeds normally, the United States will retain two carriers rather than three. Keeping the George Washington would create a temporary three-carrier concentration and confirm that this is an escalation rather than routine relief. The other constraint is ammunition. More ships and aircraft increase how quickly the United States can strike, but they do not automatically replace depleted bombs, missiles and interceptors. The Islamic Republic could also retaliate against regional bases, Persian Gulf infrastructure and shipping. The Islamic Republic should not mistake those constraints for safety. The military calendar now aligns with Trump’s political calendar. The United States is maintaining pressure through the election while assembling the option for a much heavier campaign afterward. By late November, the question may no longer be whether the United States has enough forces to escalate. It will be whether Trump decides to unleash the firepower he deliberately positioned around Iran.

Trump is the only U.S. president to successfully place the Islamic Republic under a physical economic siege. Regional oil exports have recovered to 16.5 million barrels a day, near prewar levels, while fresh Iranian crude exports have been driven effectively to zero. Now the aviation blockade is working. International flights from Iran’s main airport have collapsed 42% in one week, falling from 91 to 53 per day. Previous administrations sanctioned the Islamic Republic on paper. Trump is cutting its oil revenue, grounding its airlines and isolating the regime while neighbouring Persian Gulf producers continue exporting.

Fed up with the Islamic Republic’s deceptive negotiating games, Marco Rubio told its delegation to get out of the United States. Once the General Assembly ended, the regime’s United Nations cover expired with it. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered its delegation to leave after negotiations produced nothing. The order was delivered after high-level General Assembly meetings concluded and Qatari mediation failed to break the deadlock. The delegation, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, was told it had overstayed its welcome and left New York hours later. The message was unmistakable. The United States fulfilled its host-country obligations, allowed a restricted delegation to attend the United Nations and tested whether negotiations could produce movement. Once the Islamic Republic refused to move, Rubio withdrew the diplomatic courtesy. Iranian state media tried to present the departure as the conclusion of “intensive diplomatic consultations.” The reality was far more humiliating. The regime arrived seeking relief, failed to secure an agreement and was ordered out of the country. This fits Rubio’s long-standing view of the Islamic Republic. In 2015, he warned that nuclear sanctions relief would finance missiles, conventional forces, terrorism and regional armed groups rather than improve Iranian lives. He argued that the regime would accept temporary nuclear restrictions, strengthen the machinery surrounding the program and later pursue greater protection from retaliation. A decade later, Iran’s wealth has been spent on Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, Iraqi militias, missile development and nuclear infrastructure while Iranians endure inflation, failing services and deepening isolation. The regime used diplomacy to gain time and resources without abandoning the project that produced the confrontation. Rubio’s conclusion appears unchanged. The Islamic Republic is an ideological system that treats negotiations as an instrument of survival, not a transformation of its objectives. Diplomatic access therefore cannot become an entitlement detached from results. Ordering the delegation out did not end diplomacy. It established that access to the United States would not be extended indefinitely while the regime stalled, demanded relief and refused meaningful concessions. The Islamic Republic came to the United States hoping to escape pressure. It left without a deal, without relief and without the privilege of remaining on American soil.

Starlink terrifies the Islamic Republic, whose officials now warn they may cut electricity to stop it. Mohammad Hafez Hekmati warned that if Starlink becomes widespread, the Communications Ministry and Supreme Council of Cyberspace might as well become “an amusement park.” He also said satellite direct-to-cell service could undermine Iran’s phone-registration system, making it harder for the regime to identify and track users. The Islamic Republic’s answer to dissent has been to tighten control over communication. It blocks platforms, cuts internet access and shuts down networks when it wants to isolate protesters from one another and the outside world. In January, the Islamic Republic imposed an 18-day nationwide internet shutdown. A second lasted 88 days, from 28 February to 26 May, making it the longest shutdown of its kind in a connected society. Now Hekmati is warning that the next step could be cutting electricity. That is how far the regime’s logic has gone: if satellite connections bypass its networks, it may try to silence people by switching off the power. Starlink is not yet available to every Iranian. The regime can jam signals, raid homes and confiscate terminals. But satellite internet threatens the foundation of its censorship system because it can operate beyond the state-controlled networks used to filter, monitor and shut down communication. At the United Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu held up a Starlink terminal as a symbol of the regime’s fear of uncensored communication. An Iranian diplomat refused to accept it. Hekmati’s remarks make the point more plainly: the Islamic Republic knows that every connection it cannot control weakens its grip on the story, and potentially on the street. When a government begins discussing power cuts to stop people from communicating, it is admitting that its internet kill switch may no longer be enough.

Iran is issuing nerve-agent antidotes to troops on the Persian Gulf front, preparing them for the possibility of chemical warfare. Photos show gas masks and MSAK III kits containing atropine and oxime injectors, along with powder for decontaminating skin and clothing. These are not ordinary first-aid supplies. They are designed for nerve-agent exposure. The timing and location are alarming. Iran’s southern forces guard oil and gas infrastructure, ports and approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, as the region faces heightened military pressure. Commanders are equipping troops there to fight in a chemical-threat environment. The kits may be old stock, and their distribution does not prove Iran plans to use chemical weapons. But the regime is putting nerve-agent countermeasures into soldiers’ hands now. Whatever the specific threat they anticipate, they are preparing for a battlefield where toxic agents may be present.

The Islamic Republic is the world’s greatest state sponsor of terror. It will not stop trying to spread bloodshed beyond Iran’s borders. A regime that massacres Iranians on a historic scale threatens lives abroad too. The British prime minister’s assessment that the Islamic Republic was likely involved in the RAF incident is a chilling warning that Europe is within its reach. With the resources of a state behind it, the Islamic Republic is more dangerous than ISIS. It must be confronted.