Iranian hackers forged pre-election mailings of the Proud Boys, but the actual post-election performance of this and other groups proved more disruptive
If in the 2016 U.S. presidential election foreign meddling operations were led by Russia, in the 2020 election the focus was on Iranian hackers, because of the novelty they represented in a field of operations where Russians and Chinese were also active, each pursuing their own interests. In particular, Tehran wanted a defeat of Donald Trump so that his Democratic successor would reverse the harsh sanctions regime imposed against the Iranian regime. But those actions in cyberspace by Iran, Russia and China were ineffective due to the heightened alertness of American security and intelligence agencies. In the end, these outside attempts to discredit American democracy and undermine voter confidence in its electoral system were dwarfed by the damage caused by the domestic chaos itself.
Assault on Capitol Hill, Washington, Jan. 6, 2021 [TapTheForwardAssist].
article / María Victoria Andarcia
Russia was always in the eye of US security during the 2020 election year, after its interference in the presidential election four years earlier was established. However, while the main concern remained Russia and there were also fears of an expansion of China's operations, Iran stole the headlines in some of the warnings issued by US authorities, probably because of the ease with which they were able to attribute various actions to Iranian actors. Despite that multiple front, the development of the polling did not yield any evidence that foreign disinformation campaigns had been effective. The rapid identification of the actors involved and the offensive reaction on the part of U.S. security and intelligence services could have prevented it from reaching status of 2016. As the Atlantic Council has noted, this time "domestic disinformation overshadowed foreign action."
Given the direct consequences that the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House may have on Washington's policy towards Iran, this article pays more attention to the Iranian attempts to affect the development of the U.S. elections. The incidence of Iranian operations was minimal and had a smaller profile than those developed by Russia in 2016 (a country that in turn had less involvement than in those previous elections).
Iranian operations
In May and June 2020, some first movements in Microsoft accounts were recorded, as the company itself would later reveal. An Iranian group called Phosphorus had succeeded in gaining access to accounts of White House employees and Trump's re-election campaign team. These were early signs that Tehran was mounting some subject cyber operation.
In early August, the director of the Center for Counterintelligence and National Security, William Evanina, accused Tehran - as well as Moscow and Beijing - of using disinformation on the Internet to "influence voters, trigger disorder and undermine public confidence" in the system. Regarding Iran it stated, "We assess that Iran seeks to undermine U.S. democratic institutions and President Trump, and to divide the country ahead of the 2020 election." She added that Iranian efforts were focused on spreading disinformation on social media, where it circulated anti-U.S. content. Evanina attributed as the motivation for these actions the Iranian perception "that President Trump's re-election would result in a continuation of U.S. pressure on Iran in an effort to encourage regime change."
In the wake of the discussion between Trump and Biden televised on September 29, Twitter deleted 130 accounts that "appeared to originate in Iran" and whose content, which it had placed on knowledge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was intended to influence public opinion during the presidential discussion . The company offered only four examples. Two of the accounts were pro-Trump: on one the Username was @jackQanon (at reference letter to the conspiratorial group QAnon) and the other expressed support for Proud Boys, a far-right organization with supremacist ties to which Trump had order "be on guard and stay vigilant." The other two accounts had expressed pro-Biden messages.
In mid-October, the director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, referred on press conference to the Iranian and Russian cyber action as a threat to the electoral process. According to Ratcliffe, the Iranian operation consisted primarily of a series of emails purporting to be sent by the group Proud Boys. These emails contained threats of physical force for those who did not vote for Trump, and were intended to instigate violence and damage Trump's image by associating his campaign with radical groups and efforts to intimidate voters. Interestingly, the Proud Boys would later gain prominence for themselves in the post-election rallies in Washington and the takeover of the Capitol.
Although Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Said Jatibzadeh denied these accusations, stressing that "for Iran it is indifferent who wins the US elections", the US authorities insisted on their version and the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury department (OFAC) sanctioned five Iranian entities for having attempted to undermine the presidential elections. According to OFAC's statement , the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds Force used Iranian media as platforms to spread propaganda and disinformation to the U.S. population.
From agreement with OFAC, Iranian audiovisual media business Bayan Gostar, a regular Revolutionary Guard collaborator, had "planned to influence the election by exploiting social problems within the United States, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and denigrating U.S. political figures." Iran's Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), which OFAC considers a propaganda arm of the Revolutionary Guard, and the International Virtual Media Union "assisted Bayan Gostar in his efforts to reach U.S. audiences." These media outlets "amplified false narratives in English and published derogatory propaganda articles and other content directed at the United States with the intent to sow discord among the U.S. audience."
Post-election performance
The United States claims that Iranian interference was not limited to the elections, which were held on November 3 (with an unprecedented level of advance and postal voting), but continued thereafter in the following weeks, trying to take advantage of the existing disarray due to the questioning of the electoral result maintained by the Trump Administration. Days before Christmas, the FBI and department Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) made it known that Iran was allegedly behind a website and several social media accounts aimed at provoking further violence against various U.S. officials. The web page titled "Enemies of the People" contained photographs and information staff of both officials and staff from the private sector who were connected to the process of counting and authenticating votes cast in the election, at times confronted with allegations of fraud maintained by Trump and his supporters.
The action attributed to Iran can be interpreted as a way to avenge the drone strike ordered by Washington to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, head of the Qurds Force in Iraq, for whose death on January 3, 2020 Tehran had vowed retaliation. But above all it reveals a continuing effort by Iran to alleviate the effects of the Trump-driven U.S. "maximum pressure" policy. Given Biden's expressed intention during the election campaign to change U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic, the Islamic Republic would have the opportunity to receive a more lax attention from the U.S. if Trump lost the presidential election. Biden had indicated that if he came to power he would change policy toward Iran, possibly returning to the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 on the condition that Iran respect the limits on its nuclear program agreed to then. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was considered a milestone in the foreign policy of then President Barack Obama, but then the Trump Administration decided not to respect it because it considered that issues such as Iran's missile development and its military interference in other countries in the region had been left out.
A few days before the inauguration of the new American president, Iranian President Hassan Rohani urged Biden to lift the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic and return to the 2015 nuclear agreement . Iran hopes that the Biden Administration will take the first steps to compensate for the previous administration's actions and thus move towards a possible understanding between the two nations. The decision to return to agreement will not be made immediately as Biden inherits a divided country and it will take time to reverse Trump's policies. With the Iranian presidential elections approaching in June of this year, the Biden administration is buying time to attempt a reformulation that will not be easy, as the context of the Middle East has changed substantially over the past five years.
