Iran Finds Ways To Circumvent US Technology Sanctions
Arash Aalaei
Iran International congressional reporter
“You told me something I didn’t know about,” said Senator Todd Young (R) as he was jogging towards the US Senate building last month.
Iran International congressional reporter
“You told me something I didn’t know about,” said Senator Todd Young (R) as he was jogging towards the US Senate building last month.
I had asked him about American-made electronic components found in Iranian drones used by Russia. “Please share the link with my press secretary,” said the Senator. I did share the link and I was less surprised that Young, who is the champion of export control and technology theft and procurement by US adversaries like China, admitted he did not know if and how the Islamic Republic obtained those American made electronics.
It’s a cat and mouse game and the US government has been chasing Iran for years, if not decades.
Sanctions only work if you know the trade route, the methodologies for financial transactions between the parties involved and how often and how tight those sanctions are being enforced. In the case of the Islamic Republic, its military procurement program has permeated every continent in the globe. The Islamic republic is good at cheating the system and they tap into the international network of smugglers, spies and black-market profiteers.
Periodically, the US imposes sanctions on individuals and companies but the cat and mouse game goes on.
Tehran offer good money for weapons procurement at Iranian people’s expense, which could be spent on schools, shelters and food. Instead, they fill the pockets of criminals around the world.
Popular Mechanics published a podcast recently titled: The secret war to take out Iran’s fleet of F-14s quoting a US prosecutor on the specific and curious case of a Pakistani citizen called Arif Dourani who purchased F-14 parts for Iran for many years.
He set up a restaurant in Mexico near the US border, hired American companies to find parts and refurbish them. Some of those companies were established by former US government employees including a retired US Department of Defense intelligence officer. They found parts for Dourani through auctions held by US military surplus and then sent the parts to Iran through different countries.
Iran continued to purchase F14 parts indirectly from the US military even after the US government sanctioned it. Former US prosecutor, William Cole, told Popular Mechanics that Dourani has made twenty-fold profits on his sales to Iran, paid by the Iranian people.
The case of Iran’s F-14s became so embarrassing for the US military that in 2005 they retired the entire fleet and, just to make sure that Iranians can never get their hands on their parts, they decided to shred their F14s into pieces. But as of 2023, Iran is still flying them, albeit in a precarious state.
In the case of American made electronics used in Iranian drones, it is one thing to purchase parts, it is totally another thing to be able to put parts made from different companies together and make it actually work.
This brings us to the second asset that the regime in Iran is exploiting: The abilities and know-how of Iranian engineers, specifically those who studied at Sharif University, Tehran Polytechnic, Isfahan university of technology and the university of science and technology (Elm va Sanat Tehran), which according to UK based QS university rankings, are among the top 200 universities in electronics in the world.
Iranian people are smart, and they have a history of reverse engineering products and mixing and matching components from different vendors. Anyone who has ever visited Paytakht Mall in Tehran which used to be one of the centers to purchase home computers, knows that due to sanctions, Western companies did not sell to Iranian companies, so the skillful merchants learned to purchase components from Malaysia or Singapore and learned to put together systems tailored to customer needs for reasonable prices. Instead of spending a fortune on DELL or COMPAQ, they would find you a processor that matched a motherboard with another sound card and VGA from three different vendors. You had a home computer that scored as high if not higher than the original home computers! If merchants in Paytakht mall can get around US sanctions like that, so can the IRGC.
US sanctions might deprive the Islamic Republic of military grade technology, but the regime has learned the value of dual use civilian technologies. Iran does not have a military industrial complex and companies that can rival Northorp Grumman, Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics but, throw money at experiments with civilian technologies that students in top universities have access to and you might be surprised to learn the extent of human innovation at your own peril.
Iran’s Joint Chief of Staff’s interview with Isca News last year includes some revealing anecdotes about how Iran developed its first generation of drones in 1983. He said: “Student volunteers from Sharif and Isfahan universitiesbrought a toy plane bought as a present for a child and then they mounted a camera on it. "According to analysis published by Institute for science and international security, most of the electronics used in Shahed drones used by Russia in Ukraine are off the shelf components. Shahid drones are running with internal combustion engines but students at Sharif university developed hybrid electric drones several years ago.
The US government doesn't seem to know much about how these components have found their way into Iran, nor US-based producers of these components. Hence, the creation of a task force at the behest of the White House to investigate. Perhaps the task force can identify the methodology for the IRGC to obtain these parts, some of which are sold online. Even if they do, as an old Persian saying goes: The bed is wet, and the baby is gone!
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticized Iran on Wednesday for making an undeclared change to the interconnection between the two clusters of advanced machines enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons grade, at its Fordow plant.
Iran said the IAEA's position on Tehran's nuclear work was not correct.
“Iranian claims that this action was carried out in error are inadequate. We judge Iran’s actions based on the impartial and objective reports of the IAEA, not Iran’s purported intent,” the Western powers said in their statement.
The IAEA Board of Governors comprised of more than 30 countries has already censured Iran several times for breaching its obligation. The Board took action twice in 2022, as a warning to Iran that the West can take the issue to the UN Security Council.
According to the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran known as JCPOA, signatories can trigger the automatic re-institution of international sanctions imposed by the Security Council in the early 2010s that were lifted when the deal was made. In this case, since the United States has withdrawn form the agreement, the three European countries can resort to the ‘trigger mechanism.’
The IAEA found the change during an unannounced inspection on Jan. 21 at the Fordow Fuel enrichment Plant (FFEP), a site dug into a mountain where inspectors are stepping up checks after Iran said it would dramatically expand enrichment.
"As stated by the Agency, this unnotified change is inconsistent with Iran's obligations under its NPT-required Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement," the four countries said in their statement, referring to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
"The IAEA inspector's interpretation was incorrect but we reported it to the agency ... We immediately provided the explanation to the IAEA on the same day," Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said on Thursday.
Eslami in a television program Friday night tried to justify Iran’s nuclear program in general terms, claiming that the country needs nuclear power generation and nuclear medicine. Iranian officials often make misleading statement to the domestic audience, not mentioning that a high degree of uranium enrichment is not needed for civilian purposes. Nuclear reactors use less than 5-percent enriched uranium, while Iran has so far accumulated enough 60-percent uranium for one nuclear bomb.
The production of high-enriched uranium by Iran at Fordow carries significant proliferation-related risks and is without any credible civilian justification, the joint statement said.
Fordow is so sensitive that the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers banned enrichment there. Since the United States pulled out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions against Iran, the Islamic Republic has breached many of the deal's restrictions on its nuclear activities.
The Western powers warned, “We call on Iran to comply with all its legally-binding international obligations under its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA and to fully cooperate with the Agency in the application of effective safeguards at Fordow.”
In a 128-page report on the current protests across Iran condemning institutionalized oppression of women and the Islamic Republic’s brutal response to quell the uprising, the senate decried the use of live ammunition and indiscriminate force by security agents against civilians.
The Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade References Committee, which issued the report, urged the Australian Government to be unequivocal in its response to violence and human rights abuses in Iran, adding that “whilst Iran’s future must ultimately be written by the people of Iran in its own streets, the protection of human rights is a moral obligation and a practical necessity for us all.”
The committee, reporting on behalf of the senate, said that “evidence presented to the committee painfully illustrates the wholesale maltreatment of a nation by the very authorities whose job it is supposed to be to safeguard and protect the Iranian population.”
“Hundreds have been killed and many thousands wounded. Tens of thousands have been arrested. A number have been sentenced to death—some already executed—without access to a fair trial. Confessions are extracted through torture. Adults and children are subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse in prison,” read part of the report, titled “Human rights implications of recent violence in Iran.”
Having studied a very large sample of submitted reports and evidence, the report made a series of recommendations designed to hold accountable a regime for abusing its own people, and reduce the Islamic Republic’s ability to violate human rights without consequence.
The committee recommended that the Australian Government take the necessary steps to formally categorize the IRGC as an organization involved in supporting and facilitating terrorism, also calling for the use of sanctions to target Islamic Republic and IRGC-affiliated individuals and entities responsible for malicious cyber activity against Australia.
It also urged the government “to use the available Magnitsky legislation to expand the list of individuals and entities subject to sanctions in response to human rights abuses in Iran, with particular focus on senior officials responsible for violence, human rights abuses, arbitrary detention and executions without due process.”
The document also called on Canberra to oppose the election of the Islamic Republic to United Nations’ bodies in light of the regime’s clear disregard for human rights, it said, particularly the rights of women and girls.
The senate also expressed concerns about credible allegations of intimidation and threats against Australian citizens, residents and their families, urging the responsible government ministers to provide an update to the Parliament and the Australian public on the government’s current assessment of whether persons connected to the regime are undertaking such behavior in Australia.
The committee also recommended that Australia should minimize relations with the Islamic Republic to “the greatest extent possible in recognition of the appalling behavior of the regime,” adding that the government should increase transparency and better inform the public about the status of its diplomatic relations with Tehran, as well as the security concerns in relation to the regime’s behavior relating to cybercrime, hostage diplomacy and threats to Australian residents.
“Implementing the committee’s recommendations would place Australia more firmly in the community of nations which have heard the Iranian people cry: Enough,” read the report, acknowledging that “Australia lagged well behind many of our partner Western democracies in taking action to send a clear unambivalent message to the Iranian regime that what they are doing is grossly unacceptable.”
The West has stepped up pressure on Iran over its crackdown on protests and arms supply for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the US, European Union and United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran.
Earlier in the day, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said that “all corners of the Biden Administration have worked urgently and powerfully to mobilize the international community and confront the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses.”
On Tuesday, US lawmaker Representative Claudia Tenney (Rep-NY) reiterated, “We must impose the strictest sanctions possible on the leaders of the murderous Iranian regime, which is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”