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Iran Celebrates 1979 US Embassy Seizure amid Anti-government Protests

This image grab from a UGC video posted on November 3, 2022, reportedly shows protesters throwing a small explosive device at a banner depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as a large crowd enters the district of Fuladshahr near the central city of Isfahan. (Photo by UGC / AFP)
This image grab from a UGC video posted on November 3, 2022, reportedly shows protesters throwing a small explosive device at a banner depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as a large crowd enters the district of Fuladshahr near the central city of Isfahan. (Photo by UGC / AFP)
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Iran Celebrates 1979 US Embassy Seizure amid Anti-government Protests

This image grab from a UGC video posted on November 3, 2022, reportedly shows protesters throwing a small explosive device at a banner depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as a large crowd enters the district of Fuladshahr near the central city of Isfahan. (Photo by UGC / AFP)
This image grab from a UGC video posted on November 3, 2022, reportedly shows protesters throwing a small explosive device at a banner depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as a large crowd enters the district of Fuladshahr near the central city of Isfahan. (Photo by UGC / AFP)

Iran held state-sponsored annual rallies on Friday marking the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, as the clerical establishment that has ruled since then struggles to suppress nationwide protests calling for its downfall.

Radical students cemented Iran's revolution by storming the embassy soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days.

The two countries have been enemies ever since and, as Iranian authorities on Friday urged security forces to swiftly stamp out the anti-government protests, which have spread to all layers of society, new bilateral tensions surfaced.

Iran's president and foreign minister criticized Joe Biden, a day after the US president vowed to "free Iran".

Images broadcast on state television showed anti-American demonstrations attended by tens of thousands of people across the country on the "National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance", while songs called for "Death to America" and schoolchildren carried banners in support of the embassy seizure.

Friday's pro-establishment demonstrations offered a stark contrast to the wave of protests sweeping the country since a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody on Sept. 16 after being arrested for being inappropriately dressed.

While past demonstrations have focused on issues such as election results and economic hardships, the current protesters, who include minority Sunnis and Kurds, are determined to secure a new political order.

On Friday, the widely followed 1500 Tasvir activist Twitter account reported protests in the cities of Zahedan, Khash and Saravan in Sistan-Baluchistan, a province where most of Iran's Sunni Baluch minority live.

The impoverished area is close to the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan that has been a hotbed of unrest.

The semi-official news agency Tasnim said an unspecified number of people were injured in clashes in which protesters attacked a government building in Khash and torched several vehicles and security forces opened fire.

Tasnim carried a video purporting to show a burned bank and damaged storefronts in Khash after the unrest, with dark smoke billowing from a building.

A 1500 Tasvir video that Reuters could not verify showed protesters there throwing stones at security forces while gunshots were heard.

State news agency IRNA said several policemen were injured in the clashes.

Fear factor

The protests present one of the biggest challenges to the authority of the leadership enshrined by the revolution, with many young Iranians overcoming the fear that has stifled dissent ever since.

Iran, trying to strike a nuclear deal with world powers and get relief from sanctions that have increased hardships for many Iranians, has blamed the United States and other foreign enemies for the unrest, saying they want to destabilize the country.

Biden said on Thursday the demonstrators would soon succeed in freeing themselves.

"Don't worry, we're gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon," Biden said during a campaign speech in California. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Friday Biden had been expressing solidarity with the protesters.

President Ebrahim Raisi described the protesters as "deceived traitors", adding: "I am telling Biden that Iran was freed 43 years ago."

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian accused Biden of hypocrisy. "The White House has increasingly promoted violence and terror in the recent riots in Iran, while at the same time it is trying to reach a nuclear agreement," he said in a tweet.

Raisi's deputy, Mohammad Hosseini, called on security forces to "work swiftly to end the riots".

Women, who have been burning their veils, and university students are playing a prominent role in the demonstrations, which call for the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but they have attracted support from a broad cross-section of society.

The activist HRANA news agency said on Friday that 300 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Thursday including 47 minors, as well as 37 members of the security forces.

More than 14,000 people have been arrested in demonstrations in 134 cities and towns, and at 132 universities, it said.

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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere.

“Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Then on 27 February 2022, Putin ordered Russia to move nuclear forces to a “special mode of combat duty’, which has a significant meaning in terms of the protocols to launch nuclear weapons from Russia.”

Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security program at Chatham House, wrote in a report that according to Russian nuclear weapons experts, Russia’s command and control system cannot transmit launch orders in peacetime, so increasing the status to “combat” allows a launch order to go through and be put into effect.

She said Putin made stronger nuclear threats in September 2022, following months of violent conflict and gains made by a Ukrainian counterattack.

“He indicated a stretch in Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use from an existential threat to Russia to a threat to its territorial integrity,” Lewis wrote.

In November 2022, according to much later reports, the US and allies detected manoeuvres that suggested Russian nuclear forces were being mobilized.

Lewis said that after a flurry of diplomatic activity, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped in to calm the situation and speak against the use of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Putin announced an update of the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. The update was published on 19 November 2024 and formally reduced the threshold for nuclear weapons use.

According to Lewis, the 2020 doctrine said that Russia could use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

On 21 November 2024, Russia attacked Dnipro in Ukraine using a new ballistic missile for the first time.

She said Putin announced the missile as the ‘Oreshnik’, which is understood to be a nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile which has a theoretical range of below 5,500km.

Lewis added that Russia has fired conventionally armed nuclear-capable missiles at Ukraine throughout the war, but the Oreshnik is much faster and harder to defend against, and suggests an escalatory intent by Russia.

Nuclear Response During Cold War

In her report, Lewis said that nuclear weapons deterrence was developed in the Cold War primarily on the basis of what was called ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).

The idea behind MAD is that the horror and destruction from nuclear weapons is enough to deter aggressive action and war, she added.

But the application of deterrence theory to post-cold war realities is far more complicated in the era of cyberattacks and AI, which could interfere with the command and control of nuclear weapons.

In light of these risks, presidents Biden and Xi issued a joint statement from the 2024 G20 summit affirming the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia exchange information on their strategic, long-range nuclear missiles under the New START agreement – a treaty to reduce and monitor nuclear weapons between the two countries which is set to expire in February 2026.

But, Lewis said, with the US decision to exit the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, there are no longer any agreements between the US and Russia regulating the number or the deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km.

She said short-range nuclear weapons were withdrawn and put in storage as a result of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives but are not subject to any legal restraints.

The 10th NPT Review Conference was held in 2022 in New York. The issue of nuclear weapons threats and the targeting of nuclear power stations in Ukraine were central to the debate.

Lewis noted that a document was carefully crafted to finely balance concerns about the three pillars of the treaty – non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But Russia withdrew its agreement on the last day of the conference, scuppering progress.

“It was believed that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons it would likely be in Ukraine, using short range, lower yield ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that Russia is thought to have more than 1,000 in reserve.

“These would have to be taken from storage and either connected to missiles, placed in bombers, or as shell in artillery,” Lewis wrote.

Increasingly the rhetoric from Russia suggests nuclear threats are a more direct threat to NATO – not only Ukraine – and could refer to longer range, higher yield nuclear weapons.

For example in his 21 September 2022 speech, Putin accused NATO states of nuclear blackmail, referring to alleged “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Putin added: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

There have been no expressed nuclear weapons threats from NATO states.

NATO does rely on nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and has recently committed to significantly strengthen its longer-term deterrence and defence posture in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The current UK Labor government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to British nuclear weapons – including before the July 2024 election, according to Lewis.

Therefore, she said, any movement to ready and deploy Russian nuclear weapons would be seen and monitored by US and others’ satellites, which can see through cloud cover and at night – as indeed appears to have happened in late 2022.

Lewis concluded that depending on other intelligence and analysis – and the failure of all diplomatic attempts to dissuade Russia – NATO countries may decide to intervene to prevent launch by bombing storage sites and missile deployment sites in advance.