Iran admits Starlink could end its grip on the internet

Iran's deputy communications minister has warned that Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Elon Musk's SpaceX, could be the "final nail in the coffin" of the state's ability to control the internet, according to Iran International.

Mohammad Hafez Hakami said on Wednesday that officials had been warning about Starlink for two years without producing a policy response. He described how Tehran's answer to unrest has grown harsher with each crisis: blocking a single platform in 2017, shutting down internet access during the 2019 protests, blocking two major platforms after the 2022 protests, and disconnecting the entire network during the unrest earlier this year.

That approach, he said, is losing its force because Starlink terminals talk directly to satellites and never touch Iran's domestic network, so a government shutdown cannot reach them. "In the next crisis, we may be forced to cut electricity to the internet," he said.

The admission comes as more Iranians get online through the dishes. An Iranian official said last week that nearly 10 percent of the country's internet traffic now bypasses official routes through Starlink, Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported on September 22. Authorities have tried to stop the spread by force: Iran International reported in August that security forces had seized nearly 1,000 Starlink devices and arrested 163 people in four months.

The service has also become a political prop. Last week a Starlink terminal featured in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly, and Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon then offered the device to an Iranian diplomat on the Assembly floor. He got no response.

Hakami's comments matter beyond Iran's borders. Internet blackouts have been one of Tehran's main tools for controlling the street in every crisis since 2017. A government that cannot switch off communications has to find other ways to manage unrest, and his talk of cutting electricity shows how blunt those options may become. The warning also comes as Iran is in indirect talks with Washington, carried through Qatar, over the Strait of Hormuz crisis.