By the Editor.

The US Department of The Treasury has kindly decided to relax export controls related to technology for Iranian web users. The amendments will allow Internet users in Iran to download software related to communications, such as instant messaging and chat clients, and tools related to social networking. They will also permit the export of the same types of software to Iran.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin opines that this is “consistent with the administration’s deep commitment to the universal rights of all the world’s citizens”. How touching, but apparently this noble respect for individual freedom doesn’t extend to the administration’s own citizens.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the real motives behind the Treasury Department’s cynical move. During the 2009 Presidential Election of Iran, US officials and media outlets unleashed a frenzied volley of fraud allegations at the Iranian government. However, to this day, no credible evidence of vote fraud has surfaced.

Further, pre-election opinion polls indicated that Ahmadinejad was way ahead, laying bare these unsubstantiated rumours instigated by the Western mainstream media.

The USA has a long history of meddling in Iranian affairs. Hell, in 2009 the CIA distributed 400 million dollars inside Iran to prop up their ‘green’ revolution, and destabilise the religious leadership. America’s imperialist drive against an independent Iran has included their support and funding of Jundallah, a Sunni insurgent group of Baluchistan, responsible for a series of bloody terror attacks on Iranian civilians.

The importance of Iran’s information and communications infrastructure was realised by the White House in June 2009, when, during the election protests, Obama asked Twitter to postpone its temporary shut-down to overhaul its service. The information infrastructure proved to be a vital tool in the Western propaganda campaign to smear the election results, and push emotive memes such as Neda, hence the Treasury Department’s move. What we are seeing is an attempt by the US government to bolster a rerun of the US-driven Iranian regime change that failed in 2009. It has absolutely nothing to do with individual freedom & rights, and everything to do with the reduction of another independent state to US subservience.