Bi-Partisan Group Of US Lawmakers Ask EU To Designate Iran’s Guards
More than 130 Democratic and Republican Congresspeople issued a letter Monday asking the European Union to designate Iran’s IRGC as a terrorist organization.
More than 130 Democratic and Republican Congresspeople issued a letter Monday asking the European Union to designate Iran’s IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Referring to the multiple threats the group has posed internationally, including the attempted murder of author Salman Rushdie in the US and a plot to murder ex-Trump aide John Bolton, the group claimed that Iran remains a “leading state sponsor of terror”.
Proscribed by the US in 2019 under the Trump administration, the IRGC has been operating for decades across the EU, most recently, including a plot to murder Iran International journalists in London.
A recent study by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point showed that in the last five years Iran has instigated at least 33 plots to surveil, abduct, or assassinate citizens in Europe,” members of the US House of Representatives wrote in their letter.
Iranian communities in Europe and North America and several European and EU politicians and officials have been demanding that the EU and its member states should act to proscribe the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) in the aftermath of a deadly crackdown on protesters since September 2022.
Security forces under the command of the IRGC have killed well over 500 civilians during anti-regime protests, seriously injured hundreds of others and arrested more than 20,000. Among the detainees are hundreds of school children, women activists, journalists and artists.
The issue of adding the IRGC to the list of Europe’s terrorist entities became a rallying point for the Iranian diaspora, which launched online campaigns and held a large protest in Strasbourg on January 16 to lobby the European Parliament for passing the resolution.
The European Parliament on January 19 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the EU and its member states to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group, but its resolution is not binding for the bloc’s executive bodies.
While several key EU countries, such as Germany and France have been saying they are looking into the matter, the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has argued that such a step hinges on a legal determination by an EU member state court. However, critics believe the EU does not want to offend the Iranian regime, still hoping to open the way to a nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Congresswoman Kathy Manning (D-NC), Vice Ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Chair of the Europe Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Congressman Bill Keating (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Europe Subcommittee led the bipartisan letter.
The position of the Biden administration on the issue is not clear. There have been reports that Washington has asked the United Kingdom not to designate the IRGC, to keep channels open with Tehran with the hope of reaching a nuclear deal.
The EU and some member states have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Iranian entities and individuals also linked with the Revolutionary Guard in the past seven months, but designating the organization as a terrorist group has not happened.
“We strongly urge you, and your foreign affairs ministerial colleagues, to make the decision to fully sanction, penalize and delegitimize the IRGC, to help prevent them from further threatening democracy and freedom in the United States, Europe, and around the world,” the bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to Borrell.
When the US designated the IRGC, Iranian negotiators part of the nuclear talks were demanding that the US should reverse its decision. The negotiations that the Biden administration began in April 2021 ended in a deadlock last September and since, the President has stuck by the designation.
In the wake of the collapse, the Islamic Republic has since supplied suicide drones to Russia that have been used against civilian targets in Ukraine, angering European countries and triggering several more rounds of sanctions.
Last Thursday saw the worst rocket attacks launched on Israel from Lebanon’s south in the most intense flare-up since 2006, at the same time as rocket attacks were being launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza in Israel’s south.
On Saturday night, that front extended to Syria, where rockets were fired into the Golan Heights. In both cases, Israel has strategically but moderately responded, attacking the likes of rocket launchers, radar and artillery positions in the wake of the attacks.
The turbulence continued after the announcement that the US Navy has deployed a guided-missile submarine capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk missiles to the Middle East in a show of force toward Iran following recent tensions. Just last month the US launched airstrikes against Iran-backed forces in Syria after a rocket attack killed a US contractor and wounded seven other Americans in that country’s northeast.
The latest deployment is believed to follow the uncovering of a plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force which was preparing a drone attack against Israeli-owned civilian merchant vessels sailing in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, according to a report in The New York Times.
In a rare acknowledgment of the location and deployment of submarines, Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, said it can carry up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to US 5th Fleet “to help ensure regional maritime security and stability”.
]The 5th Fleet patrols the crucial Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil transits. Its region includes the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen and the Red Sea stretching up to the Suez Canal, the Egyptian waterway linking the Mideast to the Mediterranean Sea.
The US, UK and Israel have accused Iran of targeting oil tankers and commercial ships in recent years, allegations denied by Tehran. The US Navy has also reported a series of tense encounters at sea with Iranian forces that it said were being recklessly aggressive.
And now, many are waiting to see what Israel’s bigger response will be to the attacks from Lebanon, which at minimum, have the tacit approval of Hezbollah which controls the area, but no doubt, has the blessing of Tehran.
So far, Israel has cautiously attributed blame to Palestinian factions in Lebanon, compounded by the fact Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on the eve of the rocket barrage.
The Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman alluded to the fact that investigations into Iranian involvement were underway in a press briefing Thursday but this weekend, Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spoke with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and for the first time, claimed the attacks from both Gaza and Lebanon, were done "with the backing of Iran”.
While Hamas continues its campaign of chaos, the prospects for calm look slim. Carefully orchestrated riots inside the world’s third holiest Muslim site, Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, provoke often violent responses from Israel Police, appointed to safeguard freedom of worship.
Images of masked rioters in physical confrontations with police inside the mosque continue to stir the hatred and fuel Iran’s strategy for weakening Israel’s image in the public eye.
The Iranian regime’s media is boasting of its proxies destabilizing Israel and intimidating “the Zionists”.
On Sunday, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Islamic Republic’s parliament, spoke in the public session of the legislative body and called Israeli retaliation “barbaric attacks”.
He left little to the imagination about the regime’s future plans. The multi-faceted war against Israel continues unabated. He warned: “The Zionist regime is in its weakest state in history and knows that a harsh and crushing punishment awaits them.”