If there's anything to the timing, I think it's on the OFAC side, not the GitHub side. I doubt the OFAC would fast track this just because of a Twitter controversy, though, so it's probably just a coincidence.
If the current military gulf presence escalates to armed conflict having software open to the Iranian population keeps communication tools available until the internet gets cut.
My guess would be that they probably got it a little while back and kind of forgot about it, but this brought it back on everyone's radar and was an easy win.
