WASHINGTON, DC — US conservatives and Israel stepped
up pressure this week against the possibility that an agreement to restore the
Iran nuclear deal could see
Washington drop its "terrorist group"
designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
اضافة اعلان
The IRGC, one of the most powerful forces in Iran, was
officially branded a "foreign terrorist organization" by the
administration of president
Donald Trump
in 2019, a move that came on top of his decision the previous year to
repudiate the 2015 six-party accord that put limits on Iran's nuclear program.
Sources close to the negotiations in Vienna have said that
one of Tehran's conditions to revive the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the removal of the largely symbolic designation, which equates the
Revolutionary Guards with Daesh and Al-Qaeda.
The administration of President Joe Biden has not
acknowledged the issue, but has made clear it hopes to restore the agreement, which
seeks to block Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
‘Insult to victims’
Israel, which has opposed the JCPOA, strongly criticized
Friday the possibility that the designation will be dropped.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid
said in a statement that the IRGC was behind violent groups in Lebanon,
Yemen,
and Gaza.
"The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is a terrorist
organization that has murdered thousands of people, including Americans,"
they said.
"The attempt to delist the IRGC as a terrorist
organization is an insult to the victims and would ignore documented reality
supported by unequivocal evidence," they said.
On Thursday Republicans together with
Mike Pompeo, Trump's
secretary of state who set the terror group designation for the IRGC, condemned
the Biden administration's attempt to re-enter the JPCOA.
“President Trump and I threw out the JCPOA and brought Iran
to heel through a successful maximum pressure campaign," Pompeo said.
"The Biden administration plans to throw it all
away," he said.
Largely symbolic
At the time it was done, the
Foreign Terrorist Organization designation was largely symbolic. The IRGC, its leaders and various arms have
been layered with punitive US sanctions for years under multiple authorities.
Those sanctions block any assets under US jurisdiction, and
forbid Americans and US-based businesses — including banks with US branches —
from doing business with them.
The terror designation adds to that the possibility of a
20-year prison sentence for anyone found "providing material support"
for the IRGC.
Barbara Slavin, who directs the Future of Iran Initiative at
the Atlantic Council think tank, said the designation was originally a
political move to impress US conservatives and anti-Iran allies like Saudi
Arabia and Israel.
Lifting the designation would have "minimal"
practical impact, she told AFP.
"This is a situation where the politics seem to be more
important than the substance. The IRGC will remain sanctioned, along with its
elite Quds Force, under multiple other authorities," she said.
"It's a no-brainer to me that it's worth lifting the
designation in return for rolling back Iran's nuclear program," she said.
US General
Kenneth McKenzie, the head of the Central Command
covering the Middle East, said Friday that dropping the designation would not
change much on the ground.
"The number one objective of the US with regard to Iran
is that Iran not possess a nuclear weapon. So I think any solution that closes
that path to them contributes to regional security," McKenzie told
reporters.
McKenzie called the IRGC "the principal malign
actor" in the Middle Eastern region.
"As to what the effect delisting them would have, I
really don’t know that."
"In terms of the way we think about them, in terms of
the way we think about the threat and what they do on a daily basis across the
theater, I don't think much would change as a result of that."
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