Iran is running what Bloomberg Politics reports is a record-length internet shutdown, and the economic blowback is now landing on the regime's own private sector. Business owners and industry officials warn the blackout is driving toward mass layoffs and closures across Iranian commerce.
The strategic read: Tehran is accepting serious internal economic damage to maintain information control — which tells you how frightened the regime is of whatever it's suppressing. Kill switches aren't free. When a government runs one long enough to threaten mass unemployment, the political threat it's containing has to be judged as existential from inside the palace.
For U.S. policymakers, the data point matters: economic pressure from sanctions and internal repression costs are now compounding simultaneously. That's a different leverage environment than either tool creates alone.