Studies of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)’s role in the Iranian economy often focus on its illicit activity, like smuggling, or its involvement in construction and the media. These studies overlook the IRGC’s involvement in a sector crucial for meeting the IRGC’s growing need...
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Journalists and human rights activists have highlighted that the Iranian government is using foreign facial recognition technology to enforce hijab laws and arrest protestors. The government has not acquired this technology from Chinese companies like Tiandy and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. alone, however– it also...
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While the Islamic Republic has drawn international condemnation for restricting Iranians’ access to major portions of the international internet, key government and private-sector websites have quietly been made unavailable to those outside of Iran (so-called “geo-blocking”). This development makes it more difficult for journalists, human...
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Coverage regarding Iran’s growing exports of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including those recently sent to Russia for use in Ukraine, have generally focused on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC, an unconventional force, is known for its support for militants and non-state actors...
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The Iranian military and security apparatus’ relationships with Iranian universities extends beyond the handful of schools sanctioned by the US and the EU for facilitating weapons development-related research. Among the hundreds of Iranian government-funded research centers within Iran’s universities, at least three have received funding...
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While media discussions of Iran’s foreign policy tend to focus on its hard power outreach, foreign development – and soft power tools more broadly – have been an important component of the Islamic Republic’s strategy to project power and promulgate its ideology abroad. Despite foreign...
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Reports that an Iranian Shahed-136 loitering munition downed in Ukraine in late 2022 contained parts from more than a dozen U.S. and Western companies have spurred interest in Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturers’ mechanisms for evading U.S. sanctions and export controls. U.S. officials are...
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As with previous waves of unrest, the Iranian government has used restrictions on internet access to combat recent protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Critics have identified ArvanCloud – an unsanctioned cloud service provider which claims to maintain clients via a...
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