The US Can Put People on the Moon. Why Can’t It Get Iranians Online?

Jason Rezaian, who reported from Iran before being imprisoned by the regime, is making a straightforward argument: if the US can land people on the moon, it should be able to help Iranians get reliable internet access. The question isn't about technical capability, it's about political will.

Rezaian spent years on the ground in Iran before his imprisonment, giving him a front-row seat to how information access shapes society. His core thesis is that internet connectivity isn't just a nice-to-have for Iranians, it's a fundamental tool for transformation.

For anyone working in tech or AI, this highlights a recurring tension: the tools exist to solve major problems, but deployment often stalls on policy rather than engineering. We can build sophisticated AI systems, but getting basic internet access to people who need it most remains a bureaucratic puzzle.

The Iran situation is particularly relevant now as AI tools become more central to work and information access. When entire populations are cut off from the internet, they're not just missing social media, they're excluded from the global knowledge economy and the AI revolution reshaping how work gets done.

Rezaian's push is essentially a call to treat internet access as infrastructure, not as a secondary concern. The technical challenges of extending connectivity are solvable. The real barriers are political decisions about whether to prioritize it.