-Analysis-
As Western intelligence agencies voice increasing concerns over the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ever-closer security and military collaborations with its Eastern allies, Russia and communist China, the Russian foreign minister announced on Dec. 12 that the two countries would accelerate work on a new and significant bilateral agreement.
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The announcement came a day after Iran’s parliament approved a bill to boost collaborations with Russia in intelligence and security affairs. One of the goals of this heightened collaboration as cited in the bill is to confront “disturbances of the public peace” and any move to “subvert domestic political, social and economic conditions and disrupt the work of government.”
The details of Iran’s new security agreement with Russia are unclear, but three weeks before the parliamentary vote, the Kremlin had already announced that the two countries would expand ties in the military and technical fields, among others.
The Bill on Security and Intelligence Cooperation Between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia, which was approved on Dec. 10 with 180 votes in favor, 27 against and 10 abstentions, is now fueling fears among ordinary Iranians and even politicians. Given the secretive nature of the bill, some observers have voiced concern that it could pave the way for Russia’s “cyber domination” of Iran and further restrictions on the internet and what remains of freedom of speech inside Iran.
Importing listening devices
Jalal Mahmoudzadeh, a representative from Mahabad who voted against the bill, said in an interview with Dideban-e Iran that the text of the bill “was kept ambiguous, and a special committee ratified it without providing legislators with detailed information.”
The first step in any repressive project is to take full control of the cybersphere.
He was referring to the MPs closest to Speaker Baqir Qalibaf, who effectively act as a loyalist legislative block for the Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards. Mahmudzadeh said Iran would likely soon import web-filtering, wiretapping and listening technologies from Russia.
Government defends bill in line with leader’s instructions
On voting day, a government representative was in parliament to defend the bill. The representative said it was in line with the Leader’s directives, which are based on the “missions cited in the strategic document for cyber counter-defense, and the agreement signed (on or before 2017) between the Russian and Iranian Higher Security Council secretaries.”
The bill, he said, would in part seek to protect cyber-data shared between the Islamic Republic and Russia. The Higher Security Council secretary in Iran in 2017 was Ali Shamkhani, a direct appointee of the leader.
Another legislator who voted against was Gholamreza Nuri-Qezeljeh. He told the ILNA news agency that the bill does not set limits to Russian access to Iranian data. Hamed Bidi, an activist working on Internet and information freedom, has written in the Tehran-based Ham-mihan newspaper that the bill may well give Russia access to the online privacy and personal data of millions of Iranians.
Defending the regime against unrest
Some observers say collaborations with Russia will boost the regime’s “digital repression” powers against popular initiatives, but also pave the way for disruptions, hacking and manipulation by Russian sources.
A retired police officer has told this paper that some of the bill’s hidden provisions were very likely those matters discussed between the country’s police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, and Russian officials when he visited Moscow in June-July 2023. These would include training for riot police and regime militiamen, and protection of government premises.
The first step in any repressive project, said the former policeman, was to take full control of the cybersphere as this could “nip in the bud” any nascent discontent. “If that doesn’t work and protests make it to the streets, the second phase of suppression on the street begins. Russia has managed this way to control its domestic environment, which is the model the Islamic Republic wants for itself,” he says.
Smuggling oil to finance espionage and repression
The people who seek to control all communication in Iran are the same people who control its energy production and sales. While most Russian and Chinese firms did leave Iran or abstain from investing in its energy sector after the U.S. ditched the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and those countries have also refused to sell Iran advanced military equipment and even passenger planes, Iranian officials still consider the two states “strategic partners.”
Ultimately, they are the parties willing to supply it with the tools of repression to ensure the regime’s survival, paid for with oil sold at discounted prices, dodging Western sanctions.
“Ending the United States’ supremacy is possible ‘with Iran’s help.'”
The regime needs the support of these “partners” ahead of possible dire scenarios of unrest or a foreign threat, and is already paying them their fees. That means selling China cheap oil or sending drones to Russia to aid its war on Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown he can be a friend to dictators in distress, like the rulers of Syria, Kazakhstan or Belarus, who all faced unrest in the past decade.
Presumably, the ayatollahs believe they too can count on Putin’s support, should another uprising erupt in Iran. Still, some in Iran, like the former foreign minister, Javad Zarif, or a former head of parliament’s national security commission, Hishmatullah Falahatpisheh, have repeatedly warned about Russia’s treacherous streak and cynical bid to simply milk the Iranian alliance for all it is worth.
Creeping surveillance
The Islamic Republic’s collaborations with these powers are not benefiting its economy overall. The benefits, or profits, flow directly into the hands of a limited number of cronies and insiders in Iran, notably the Revolutionary Guards, as well as to their sanctions-busting middlemen outside. From time to time, Western powers manage to clamp down on these insidious networks, which involve firms based worldwide.
It is not clear how much money the regime spends on repressing Iranian citizens and surveillance technologies, but now, in any case, it has formalized its furtive practices of the past 20 years with parliament’s assent.
The West, meanwhile, has decided to observe while taking minimal action. It is clearly not a matter of not knowing, but rather, a political choice, if not a sign of Western weakness, when it cannot even prevent the trickle of its technologies toward Iran, in spite of their military applications.
Khamenei has never made a secret of his desire to include Iran in an anti-Western bloc, or some sort of successor to the Warsaw Pact to thwart the West across the world. As Russia’s ambassador in Tehran, Alexei Dedov wrote in Aug. 2022, ending the United States’ supremacy was possible “with Iran’s help.” Only the Islamic Republic is no longer aiding China and Russia, but willingly turning Iran into a pawn and puppet of two “communist-style” states with sinister, global ambitions.
