By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
The Biden administration is reportedly considering removing the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from America’s foreign terrorist organization blacklist, but this move would be a dangerous miscalculation for several reasons.
Tehran has made it crystal clear during the nuclear deal talks in Vienna that its ballistic missile program, military institutions and regional policies are non-negotiable. As a result, the Biden administration should also avoid giving any concessions that are not linked to the nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The events of 1979 gave birth to the IRGC. Ali Khamenei gave considerable power to the organization after he became the country’s second supreme leader in 1989, while sidelining other powerful clerics. Khamenei declined to merge the IRGC into the nation’s regular army and made a robust alliance with it in order to control those who oppose him and to export the regime’s revolutionary ideals to other countries.
And after the first wave of widespread protests that erupted in Iran in 2009, Khamenei granted even more power to the IRGC and its paramilitary group, the Basij. The senior cadres of the IRGC enjoy the final say on some of Tehran’s foreign policy and its support for proxy militias. In other words, while the regime was first founded as a theocracy, it is becoming more of a military state as the IRGC pursues its regional ambitions by exploiting the revolutionary principles that form the core of the regime’s legitimacy.
The IRGC has also become the financial backbone of the clerical establishment as it controls significant sections of Iran’s economic and ideological centers.
More fundamentally, the Biden administration must not forget that the Iranian regime is the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism thanks to the IRGC and its elite branch, the Quds Force. As former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe last week pointed out in a joint statement, the Iranian regime is both a direct and indirect threat to Americans and “previously attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.”
The three Trump administration officials added: “These assessments, combined with the IRGC’s lengthy history of killing hundreds of Americans… make it clear: The IRGC is a terrorist organization and should remain labeled as such… The pursuit of an ill-conceived ‘deal’ should not compel American leaders to acquiesce to the demands of a terrorist regime to deny the truth. American lives are at stake, and this is a time to project strength, not weakness.”
Any form of regional stability is considered an obstacle to the IRGC’s objective of expanding its influence beyond Iran’s borders. In fact, it has been through domestic conflicts that the IRGC has expanded its stranglehold by penetrating other countries such as Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, while giving birth to several critical Shiite and militia proxies. In the long term, these proxies increase the Iranian regime’s political and ideological influence. In addition, the more tension and conflict there is, the more the militaristic role of the IRGC increases in order to achieve its regional ambitions. This has led to a vicious series of heightened conflicts.
The IRGC must be regarded as the force behind many militia and terror groups in the region. In Syria, the IRGC and Quds Force have employed various acts of terror to keep Bashar Assad in power and to build permanent military bases. The IRGC continues to build a coalition of Shiite forces and militias in Syria. They advance Iran’s interests and are turning into the bedrock of Syria’s sociopolitical and socioeconomic infrastructures.
Regarding the Yemen conflict, it is inconceivable to argue that the Houthis could have obtained the military capability and advanced weapons they possess without the assistance of the IRGC and the Quds Force. Several of the ballistic missiles that were fired at Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi militia were reportedly designed by Iran.
The IRGC has smuggled advanced weaponry to its militias and proxies, such as Hezbollah, that can turn unguided rockets into precision-guided missiles. It also provides ideological, military and tactical training to foreign recruits, who are later dispatched to countries in the Middle East and beyond to conduct terrorist activities. The terrorist and militant groups across the Middle East that are controlled by the IRGC are among the key reasons for the ongoing tensions, conflicts and instability in the region. One of the regime’s fundraising tactics is based on illicit activities such as kidnapping and extortion conducted by the IRGC and its militia groups and proxies.
In a nutshell, the Iranian regime’s IRGC is the godfather of many terror and militia groups across the region — it must remain designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organization.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
This article was first published by arabnews
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