Harassment of U.S. Naval forces by Iranian forces
in international waters of the Persian Gulf reveals that Iran’s leadership is
prepared to test the new administration: on its publicly stated commitment to
confront Iran when it fails to meet its obligations under the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), when it violates United
Nations sanctions, or when it engages in destabilizing activities in the region.
Given the other actors involved with the JCPOA
and U.N. sanctions on ballistic missiles, Washington has only a few unilateral
options for confronting Iranian misbehavior. One of those is designation of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
The
State Department FTO list for 2015,
published in June 2016, includes neither the Quds Force nor its parent, theIRGC. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson can add both to the list pursuant to
three criteria: They must be foreign organizations engaged in terrorist
activity that threatens U.S. persons or U.S. national security (i.e., national
defense, foreign relations or the economic interests of the United States).
Because of the IRGC-QF's ongoing support for terrorist activities, no
justification for its designation is needed. Herein we argue that its parent
organization, the IRGC, also merits designation, due to its function as the
paymaster of the Quds Force.
ADVERTISEMENT
The IRGC-QF is not an element of the armed
forces subordinate to military leadership; it is a distinct entity that serves
the Supreme Leader to guard the Islamic Revolution. As such, it is not in fact
a formal governmental entity but an expression of the Islamic Republic’s
revolutionary movement. This independence from the elected government’s
authority makes it a de facto nongovernmental actor operating in an extra-legal
fashion, particularly when operating abroad. Thus, any use of violence by the
IRGC-QF would be extrajudicial.
The
theocratic structure of real authority in Iran, in which the Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei trumps the authority of the president and Parliament, does not create
a parallel official state structure; it only allows an unofficial entity, the
IRGC, to function outside the formal system of authority while maintaining a
veneer of being an official institution within the administrative structures of
the state subordinate to the will of the people.
The
IRGC is dedicated to protecting the Islamic Revolution, not the state of Iran.
As guardians of the Islamic Revolution, it supports terrorist activities by the
Quds Force and its other military divisions. The IRGC finances these terrorist
activities through its business activities, making the overall organization
simply the paymaster for terrorist activities by its constituent elements.
Efforts to shut off the flow of funds by using U.S.
Treasury sanctions against
different controlled or directed business entities become a never-ending
attempt to keep track of firms that shut down and reopen under a new name,
adding difficulties to blocking the flow of funds to them.
Designating
the IRGC would make it far easier to constrain its foreign activities, as
legitimate businesses would be obliged to conduct due diligence on partners in
the regions — even the hint of a connection might induce them to avoid working
with those tainted firms. Designation would enable Tillerson to lobby with
countries involved with Iran to sever commercial ties with the IRGC, rather
than having to seek to influence them from dealing with the many entities on
the Treasury list. It would also give leverage to legitimate Iranian business
interests to keep the IRGC at arm’s length, and has the potential to create
more space for independent business to grow.
The
extent of the IRGC business interests, and the negative impact it has had and
continues to have on the Iranian economy, is well documented in a recent work
by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI: “Iran,
The Rise of the Revolutionary Guard's Financial Empire”). In
addition to bankrolling terrorist activities abroad, the financial activities
of the IRGC starve investments from legitimate businesses within Iran that
could be the engine for more moderate political leadership that was to be
strengthened by the JCPOA. Any chance for moderate political leaders to sustain
efforts to restrain the destabilizing actions of the Iranian regime are doomed
to failure as long as the IRGC has a stranglehold on the Iranian economy.
The
interconnected network of wealth and power in the hands of the ayatollahs and
the IRGC is indicative of their monopoly over the Iranian economy. Currently,
to do business with Iran is to do business with the IRGC. Like any rogue state
in which regime elements control the economy for its own benefit, rather than
that of the general population, the citizens soon face unemployment, high
inflation, near-destruction of the manufacturing sector, wide-scale corruption
and stagnant wages — a sure recipe for social discontent.
Returning
to the international arena, the IRGC financial activities underpin the Iranian
involvement in Syria and Iraq. In the case of Syria, the IRGC uses its immense
wealth to pay for Hezbollah and other non-Iranian
fighters to prop up the Assad regime, reducing the efficacy of the
leverage the U.S. and others can bring to bear and increasing the influence the
Iranian regime will continue to exert in Syria after the war there comes to an
end. Pro-regime security forces are already establishing themselves in
Damascus, and the jockeying for influence in a post-war Syria has begun. Among
these groups are those either controlled or financed by the IRGC, establishing
a means for Iran to continue to direct events in Syria after the fighting has
come to an end — all financed by the IRGC (also documented in a 2016 report by
the NCRI: “How
Iran Fuels Syria's War.”
Designation
also achieves diplomatic goals. It sends a message to the Gulf States that
President Trump is serious about blunting the hegemonic intentions of Iran; it
reaffirms his commitment to fighting terrorism by going after the financial
empire used to sustain terrorist activities; and it sends a message to the
Iranian people that he is resolved to contain the ayatollahs’ revolutionary
movement, with no animus against the Iranian people.
----
Raymond Tanter served as a senior
member on the National Security Council staff in the Reagan-Bush administration
and is now professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. Edward
Stafford is a retired Foreign Service officer who focused on political-military
affairs; his last assignment was teaching at the Inter-American Defense
College.
Comments
Post a Comment