In July, the White House warned that Iran was attempting to exploit Gaza protests in the U.S. The Director of National Intelligence also issued a statement highlighting Iran’s increasingly aggressive foreign influence campaigns and warning about initiatives aimed at inciting American citizens.
Over the years, Iranian media, officials, and the country’s Supreme Leader himself have repeatedly attempted to influence international public opinion against Israel and take credit for movements they perceive as aligned with the Islamic Republic’s interests—so much so that high-ranking clerics in Iran even call the recent Gaza protests on U.S. university campuses “the export of the Islamic Revolution to America.”
It’s difficult to determine the exact extent of Iran’s influence over public discourse on Palestine-Israel politics. In reality, most of the Islamic Republic’s efforts seem to have limited impact.
However, their tactics warrant analysis to understand foreign influence campaigns targeting young people in the U.S. and how these operations—even when they fail to attract the intended international audience—contribute to domestic propaganda within Iran.
Social media campaigns
One such campaign was “Letters from Leader.” In 2015 and 2024 respectively, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, wrote online open letters addressed to young people in the West. The 2015 letters were written in response to widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in the West following the terrorist attacks in Paris. The 2024 version focused on the Palestine-Israel conflicts and was titled “As the page of history is turning, you are standing on the right side of it.”
On social media, these letters were systematically promoted by supporters of the Supreme Leader with hashtags like #LetterFromLeader and #LETTER4U. Research conducted by my colleagues at the Persian-language fact-checking project, , found evidence of coordinated inauthentic behaviors: One promotional strategy employed by accounts on X (formerly Twitter) was “copypasta,” where accounts post identical or similar messages using specific hashtags to promote a tweet. Additionally, around ten percent of the randomly selected 4,530 X accounts involved in the campaign were newly created in 2024; many shared common phrases in their profile bios. Meta’s own investigations have also uncovered Iranian government-affiliated coordinated inauthentic behaviors on Facebook and Instagram in the past.
Despite all this promotion, Khamenei’s letters did not receive significant attention outside of Iran. However, within the country, authorities used the opportunity to spread the idea of the Islamic Republic’s supposed influence among young people in North America and Europe. A recent report published by an Iranian Armed Forces-affiliated website went as far as to state that “The root of the recent developments (protests since October 7th, 2023) in universities across the United States and Europe can be traced back to a letter written 10 years ago by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution. It is hoped that these movements will lead to profound transformations globally.”
Cyber-enabled influence operations
As conflicts in the Middle East continue to escalate, Iran has also intensified its Cyber-enabled Influence Operations (IOs). A Microsoft Security Insider report in February indicates that the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel marked a turning point in Iran’s cyber influence operations. The report, titled “Iran surges cyber-enabled influence operations in support of Hamas,” referenced increased trends in impersonation of activists and victims, cyberattacks on Israeli (and their allies’) infrastructure, distributing false warnings through bulk text messaging and emails, to name a few.
Offline influence operations
There is also evidence that Iran’s overseas influence operations extend beyond the digital realm. The Islamic Republic is skilled at utilizing cultural institutions established worldwide for its messaging. For example, the Islamic Culture and Communication Organization, which is affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, operates in 64 locations worldwide and receives millions of dollars annually to “promote the discourse of the Islamic Revolution.” Many of the Organization’s activities are organized by military and security forces centered around the Quds Force, a branch of the IRGC that operates outside of Iran’s borders. On April 26, 2024, the Organization publicly called on “all universities, academic, and cultural centers worldwide,” including those in the U.S., to escalate protests against Israel.
Reports also indicate that over the past two decades, the organization has sent an average of 1,500 individuals abroad annually as “religious elites” and “missionaries.” On top of this, numerous high-ranking individuals with military and political backgrounds have been students and researchers at prominent universities and institutions in the West, where they may learn the pressure points that are most effective in open societies.
Consider the 2017 campaign centered around the story of Mohsen Dehnavi. After he was denied entry at the Boston airport, a high-profile media campaign was launched, describing him only as a medical researcher traveling with his family to a position, and blaming the incident on the “Muslim travel ban” enacted by then-President Donald Trump. The campaign was covered by major media outlets, including BBC and . It later that Dehnavi had been head of Sharif Univeristy’s student Basij, the paramilitary volunteer militia that is part of the IRGC, and deployed to confront protestors and enforce regime dominance.
Ultimately, the answer to the question “Does Iran have an influence on student movements in the U.S.?” is not a simple yes or no. While there is no conclusive evidence that Iran actively organized the recent student protests, the Islamic Republic does not hesitate to use public sentiments in the West to its advantage. And with its extensive history of influence and sabotage operations both online and offline, Iran’s potential in shaping the ongoing Israel-Palestine debates in the West cannot be disregarded.
