The unprecedented sanctions passed by House lawmakers last Tuesday and the Senate last Thursday are a milestone achievement in
countering the Iranian regime's belligerence and fixing some of the key flaws contained in the nuclear deal
hammered between Iran and world powers in 2015.
Under the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear pact is formally
known, Iran was effectively given a free pass on all its non-nuclear activities
as long as it committed to limiting, not dismantling, its nuclear program. The
JCPOA was the nucleus of the Obama administration's Iran policy.
In contrast,
Trump has called it "the worst deal ever negotiated" and has assigned a White House team to find a credible case for
declining Iran's compliance with the accord.
In the two
years since the signing of the agreement, Iran has exploited the JCPOA's
loopholes and economic incentives to speed up its ballistic missile program,
expand its terrorist activities in neighboring countries, and ramp up its
domestic human rights violations without fear of retribution from the
international community. Fearing Iran would walk away from the deal, Obama
refrained from dealing any of those activities in earnest.
Although
sanctions had been previously imposed against Iran's terrorist activities and
human rights violations, the new measure is significant because it directly
targets the entirety of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the military body that runs
Iran's foreign terrorism portfolio, its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons
program, and is largely responsible for the crackdown on dissidents and
violation of the Iranian people's most basic rights.
According to
the "Countering Adversarial Nations Through Sanctions Act," as the
new bill is called, the IRGC is designated as a terrorist entity under
Executive Order 13224.
The
designation will freeze all assets linked to IRGC and its members. It also
prohibits American individuals or entities from establishing financial,
business, services or other affiliations with any individuals directly or
indirectly associated to the IRGC.
As the IRGC
has encroached over Iran's economy over the past years, this will put severe
strains on Iran's funding of terrorism and weapons development.
The Iranian
regime has a history of circumventing sanctions, but this time, it will prove
much more difficult, if not impossible, because of the severity and
comprehensiveness of the sanctions. Accordingly, Iranian regime officials have
described the new round of sanctions as a "black hole," "mother
of all sanctions," and "nuclear JCPOA."
In a statement, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI) welcomed the measure as an essential step in rectifying the
damaging policy of appeasement that previously dominated the policy toward
Iran.
"The
IRGC serves as the guarantee to preserve the entirety of the religious fascism
ruling Iran," the statement reads. "In the past 28 years, the Iranian
regime's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has placed a vast portion of the wealth
and resources of the Iranian people under IRGC's control, enabling it to
plunder a large portion of Iran's economy."
The NCRI
underlined that the sanctions need to be complemented with "the eviction
of the IRGC and its affiliated militia particularly from Syria and Iraq as well
as the recognition of the Iranian people's right to overthrow the clerical
regime."
Democratic
regime change in Iran, a goal that the NCRI has supported for years, is now
getting traction across the world. Last month, at an NCRI gathering in Paris,
prominent dignitaries and politicians from the U.S. and other countries called for regime change in Iran. The Trump administration is
considering support for regime change as part of its policy toward
Iran, which is currently under review.
Paralyzing
the IRGC and assuming a tougher stance against Iran's nefarious activities can
ensure that regime change happens without the need for foreign military
invasion and another violent conflict in the region.
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