The Daily
Caller, April 15, 2017
- As the main
bases of the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh) fall like dominos,
and as the threat of that “caliphate” with territorial claims gradually wanes,
a much more frightening monster, the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC), emerges in the landscape of the Middle East.
The image conjures up the picture of the biblical monster
Leviathan, whose name inspired the title of Thomas Hobbes’s seminal work on
political philosophy.
The IRGC, the Leviathan of Terror, which has the financial
and military resources that exceed the wildest dreams of ISIS, now lurks in the
Middle East. Its tentacles extend well beyond the geographical borders of Iran.
While ISIS claimed parts of Syria and northern Iraq, the IRGC’s Shiite militias
have an extensive presence in almost every country in the region.
In Iraq, the IRGC controls the Badr Organization, the
al-Nojaba Movement, the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Kata’ib Imam
al-Ali, Sarya al Khorasani, Kata’ib Seyed al-Shohada, Liwa Abu Fadl, Liwa’a
Zulfiqar and Harakat al-Abdal. There are many other smaller offshoots.
The IRGC also has control over the Ansarollah (Houthis) in
Yemen, the Hezbollah in Lebanon – which has conducted numerous terrorist
attacks in the region and around the world – the Tayyar al-Amal al-Esmali in
Bahrain, the Islamic Jihad and the Saberin in Palestine, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards in Egypt, the Kuwaiti Hezbollah, the Fatemiyoun Brigade in
Afghanistan and the Zeinabiyoun Brigade in Pakistan.
These are the tentacles of the IRGC whose heart beats in
Tehran. A significant portion of oil revenues obtained by the Iranian regime
constantly funds these militias, with devastating consequences for the region
and the security of western nations.
A large percentage of these militias’ costs are paid through
revenues obtained by business ventures run by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei’s Setad, the IRGC Cooperatives, the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation,
the IRGC Basij Cooperative and a share of the government’s budget.
The main Iranian opposition the National Council of
Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) has revealed a
list of 31,690 Iraqi mercenaries of the IRGC, all of whom receive their
salaries from Iran.
Last year, U.S. military officials said that as many as
100,000 Iranian-backed Shiite militia are now fighting on the ground in Iraq,
“raising concerns that should the Islamic State be defeated, it may only be
replaced by another anti-American force that fuels further sectarian violence
in the region.”
In Yemen, the IRGC shoulders the bulk of the costs for the
Houthis who have waged a bloody war against the central government. The
Houthis’ ballistic missile arsenal and armed drones have been supplied by the
Iranian regime.
The militia is also using a new weapon that is raising fears
of seaborne attacks on both military and commercial shipping in the region.
“The weapon is an Iranian-designed remotely piloted small boat filled with
explosives, a defense official” told the Washington Times last month.
In Bahrain, “U.S. and European analysts now see an
increasingly grave threat emerging: heavily armed militant cells supplied and
funded, officials say, by Iran.”
The Lebanese Hezbollah, according to its current secretary-general
Hassan Nasrallah, receives all of its money and weapons from Iran. As far back
as October 8, 2013, the French daily Le Figaro cited Lebanese sources
estimating that Iran has provided Hezbollah with a staggering $30 billion
dollars over the past 30 years.
Similarly, analysts estimate that Tehran’s annual financial
backing amounts to $1.5B-$3B for dozens of Shiite militias in Iraq, $1.5B-$2.5B
to the Houthis in Yemen, $1B-$1.5B to the Lebanese Hezbollah, $150M to the
Afghan Fatemiyoun (who also fight in Syria) and another half a billion dollars
to militias peppered across the Gulf states.
Alarmingly, these figures do not even include the
mindboggling costs incurred by Iran for its involvement in the massacre of the
Syrian people. By some estimates, the IRGC spends nearly $8B on its militias
and mercenaries around the region, excluding Syria. These terror entities
inflame sectarian tensions and set the stage for the growth of groups like ISIS.
Unless the Iranian regime, the IRGC and their myriad of
extremist militias are expelled from regional countries, violence will hobble
the Middle East, with catastrophic spillover effects for the world.
The Leviathan of Terror will only survive through constant
expansion and regeneration in the Middle East. It will only die if it is
contained within the borders of Iran.
As an essential first step in that direction, the Trump
administration should designate the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization
(FTO). Failure to adopt this critical measure will only serve to embolden the
regime while the region and the wider world continue to grapple with the menace
of religious extremist and terrorism.
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