Comment by alephnerd
6 hours ago
Iran has been rolling out the National Information Network (essentially a whitelisted internet) for a couple years now after the Green Revolution [0].
Iran has a surprisingly robust domestic ecosystem of hyperscalers [1] and telco infra [6][7] built out over the past decade with limited outside involvement and a severe sanctions regime, and have even started exporting Iranian IT services to Uganda [2], Kenya [3], South Africa [4], Venezuela [5], Russia [9], and China [9]
My understanding is that during the current 5 year plan in Iran, they are trying to fully transition the Iranian internet to the NIN, as all ".ir" domains are supposed to be hosted on the NIN.
If someone wants to find a techno-authoritarian state I'd say Iran is probably closer to that vision than most other countries, as a large portion of their leadership are Western-educated (Stanford, MIT, UPMC/Paris VI, Supélec, UNSW, etc) Computer Engineers and Computer Scientists by training (eg. Iran's VP did his PhD under Thomas Cover at Stanford [8] and Rouhani's Chief of Staff studied EE@SJSU). Even Iran's NSC and former IRGC head (who's daughter is a surgeon at Emory - so much for marg bar amreeka) was a CS major turned Kantian philosophy PhD.
[0] - https://citizenlab.ca/irans-national-information-network/
[1] - https://www.arvancloud.ir/fa
[2] - https://tvbrics.com/en/news/uganda-and-iran-to-boost-ict-co-...
[3] - https://mail.techreviewafrica.com/public/news/1361/kenya-and...
[4] - https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena_daily_news?news=64545
[5] - https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/08/06/752585/Iranian-fibe...
[6] - https://zmc.co.ir/
[7] - https://www.rayafiber.com/en/home
[8] - https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1011657
[9] - https://www.kharon.com/brief/iran-sanctions-maximum-pressure...
This is the issue for any US/western regime change operation in Iran (whatever one may think of its moral merits or lack thereof).
Iran is not Syria, there's a lot of wily people in the leadership and they won't be rolled over so easily
Yeah, wonder why Trump doesn't threaten North Korea? Because they actually have achieved all this, internal internet completely sealed, nuclear weapons and developing ballistic missiles to reach the USA.
So actually.. getting the nukes was the right play for them because eventually they would get sold out by China or Russia. Having nukes gets you to shake hands and send love letters to Trump. Frankly Trump sees Europeans as total cucks and has more respect for Kim Jong-un
If Iran actually had nukes, the Israeli lead bullying would immediately halt.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the independent French nuclear deterrent.
I should probably put an outside bet on the next country to get the Bomb being Poland, maybe by 2050. They've only just started building a civilian reactor, but weapons would make strategic sense for them.
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Kinda envious of them that, due to sanctions, they end up with hyperscalers. Europe will never get hyperscales while being too tight with the US, and any protectionism at the service industry level would make the US go more mental than it already is.
A subtle reason for preferring negotiations towards mutually beneficial ends-- sanctions can supercharge tech adoption
Yeah, or even just protectionism. Most economists I've heard say that protectionism doesn't work, but I feel like China being quiet and protectionist in the infancy of its key industries was like the move of the century for them.
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It's not only because of sanctions. It's primarily because their leadership have deeply technical backgrounds. Most of my peers who ended up in policymaking roles in Europe (and in some cases the levers of power) all had a humanities or legal background and never worked in or adjacent to the tech industry.
Assuming Iran didn't follow the path that it did, Iran would have also ended up becoming a tech hub like Israel became today.
But this recognition should not be used to glaze a regime that has officially admitted to killing at least 5,000 protestors [0] in just 2 weeks and in reality killed significantly more people than that.
Being adept at understanding the applications of technology doesn't make one a humanist.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/iranian-offic...
Iranians have a 5+ millennia culture of being highly educated, technical and creative.
That expertise wasn’t just gonna disappear in a couple of decades.
And yes, the Iranian regime is brutal and terrible. This was one time the opposition was strong enough that they may have had a chance and yet our fellow in chief decided to launch incendiary words, which only allowed the regime to paint the opposition as western funded, while not providing any actual support (there’s a reason Israel, which is at least led by competent leadership, kept quiet about the protests in Iran because they understand how their words of support would undermine them).
Agree with you on pretty much everything you have said. The background of policymakers in Europe really annoys me. Just to be clear, I wasn't glazing Iran or anything.
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That first link you shared is fascinating. This group also published this incredible report on an AI-enabled influence operation aimed at toppling Iran
https://citizenlab.ca/research/2025-10-ai-enabled-io-aimed-a...
> Iran has a surprisingly robust domestic ecosystem of hyperscalers [1]
This is already repeated by the Google Search AI summary, which is unfortunate since your reference (from 2012) doesn't seem to back it up.