Iran threatens ‘complete and utter annihilation’ of OpenAI's $30B Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi
UK navy tracked three Russian submarines near undersea cables, damage would 'have serious consequences,' Putin warned
Some of the practical wealth creation steps Iran could take, according to the cited Tasnim post, include:
Initial licensing and levy of annual renewal fees for foreign cable owners/operators
Insist that tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft, which use the cabling, operate under Iranian law
Ensure exclusive control and maintenance of the cabling is in the hands of Iranian companies.
Another well-known Iranian news source that is also linked to the IRGC, Fars, has published a similar story, according to Iran International. Fars reportedly floats the idea of disrupting the internet cables in the Strait, causing damage measured in tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars over even just a few days. Such an act would not just hurt the U.S. tech giants, though; local and other global businesses would likely feel the impacts, too.
Threatening the undersea cables in the Strait of Hormuz isn't entirely a new idea, admits the source. It notes that Tasnim mapped the internet cabling in a news report last month. At that time, the IRGC-affiliated media highlighted that the cables running through the strait were of greatest importance to countries to the south, like the western-interest-friendly UAE , Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Hopefully, these news articles from Iranian agencies close to the government/military are mostly a saber-rattling effort, another bargaining chip held aloft, in the will-they-won’t-they conflict negotiations that have dominated headlines for weeks.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/irgc-linked-media-outlines-plan-to-tax-and-control-undersea-internet-cables-in-the-hormuz-strait-irans-mouthpiece-calls-for-a-cut-of-usd10-trillion-of-transactions-that-pulse-through-the-cables-daily#main
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