With Iran and world powers reportedly on the verge of inking a nuclear deal, the United States (US) is considering the possibility of removing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO). The IRGC, which is loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader and has sworn to protect the Islamic character of Iran, was designated as an FTO by the US in 2019 for running a “global terrorist campaign.”
Since coming to power in January 2021, US President Joe Biden has sought to reverse the “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran by the previous administration and promised to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was abandoned by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2018. As part of this effort, Washington has expressed willingness to accommodate Tehran’s demands, including de-listing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
The US has, however, stressed that any such move would require Iran to provide assurances that the IRGC would commit to reducing its military expansion in the Middle East and halt support for its proxy militias. Given the Biden administration’s seemingly unshakable focus on reviving the JCPOA, the US would likely trust an Iranian commitment to rein in the IRGC’s activities. This is because any deal would provide Iran with relief from crippling sanctions, which Tehran desperately wants removed. Moreover, the IRGC’s removal from the FTO list would allow the paramilitary group to operate without major restrictions.
To this end, Iran has demanded the IRGC’s removal from the terror designation as a precondition for it to sign any nuclear deal. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian claimed last week that the IRGC is Iran’s “most important security and defence body” and said its removal from the US’ list of terrorist organisations is the most important issue of the nuclear talks.
However, while removing the group from the FTO list would lead to the signing of the much-sought-after nuclear deal and help the Biden administration achieve one of its major foreign policy goals, this move could return to haunt Washington.
Iran has continued to use its proxy groups to target US infrastructure in the region even throughout talks to revive the JCPOA, despite the West calling on Tehran to scale down its aggressive tactics. In 2021 alone, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched missile and drone attacks on military bases hosting American troops multiple times, killing a US military contractor and wounding several US and Iraqi personnel in the process. Earlier this month, the IRGC claimed responsibility for launching several missiles near a US consulate near Erbil.
Therefore, the odds of the IRGC toning down its belligerence if Iran and world powers succeed in signing a nuclear deal are not favourable, particularly when one considers the aftermath of the signing of the JCPOA. Not long after the 2015 deal was signed, the IRGC was blamed for waging a covert war against the US, both domestically and on a global scale. The Guards funded Iranian hackers to launch massive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the US and, as per US Country Reports on Terrorism since 2015, launched numerous attacks on American interests and allies in the Middle East. In this respect, dropping the IRGC’s FTO designation provides no guarantee that the paramilitary force will halt its attacks, especially since this would remove sanctions on the group and allow it to access more funds to support its proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria.
Keeping this in mind, Iran experts Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway argue that maintaining the FTO designation would make it difficult for the group to provide financial support to its proxies, as the US would be able to sanction the Guards and any other group that receives their support. Noting the devastating impact of sanctions on Russia’s economy, Coates and Greenway posit that sanctions are a “critical tool when applied consistently” and argued that delisting the IRGC to revive the JCPOA would “undermine the credibility of US sanctions.”
Apart from targeting American interests in the region, the IRGC has also used its proxies to launch devastating attacks on the US’ Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. As a result, US allies in the region are firmly against removing the Guards’ terrorist label, claiming that it would provide the IRGC with even greater impetus to launch attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, for example, has urged the US not to remove the IRGC’s terrorist designation and “not abandon its closest allies in exchange for empty promises from terrorists.”
Matthew Levitt, an expert on the IRGC, notes that Gulf states and Israel are already “extremely concerned” about a renewed nuclear deal with Iran; thus, they see removing the IRGC’s terror label as completely unacceptable. Levitt asserts that “they fear that if Tehran is flush with funds from sanctions relief, it will increase its support for terrorist proxies across the region, causing further destabilisation.” Such a move could also lead to the isolation of Washington in the region. For instance, Saudi Arabia has been developing closer military and economic ties with China.
Additionally, opposition to the Biden administration removing the IRGC’s FTO label has also been brewing in Washington. Earlier this month, 80 US Congress members from both the Republican and Democrat parties signed a letter stating their opposition to legitimising the IRGC’s “reckless” and “destabilising” actions in the Middle East. Stating that Iran is the “leading state sponsor of terror” globally, they noted that any decision to delist the IRGC as a terrorist organisation would be “unconscionable.”
Moreover, removing the FTO status would legitimise the IRGC’s domestic human rights abuses and renege the Biden administration’s self-proclaimed agenda of putting human rights at the centre of its foreign policy. According to Human Rights Watch, the IRGC violently suppresses any form of dissent and uses physical abuse and torture to punish activists protesting against regime policies. In fact, the US State Department has previously reported on the Guard’s use of brutal tactics against Iranian citizens and sanctioned IRGC officials over their involvement in rights abuses. Washington Post columnist and former Iranian prisoner Jason Rezaian posits that the US should not miss the opportunity to punish the IRGC, which he says “has been integral to the weakening of Iranian civil society, spreading its tentacles into virtually all sectors, from construction to media production, and using its power to abuse citizens and destroy anything it perceives as competition.”
The US removing the Guards from the FTO designation would also go against the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) blacklisting of Iran for financing terrorist groups. The FATF has accused Iran of not taking measures to curb terrorist financing and called the IRGC’s activities a threat to the international financial system.
Therefore, rather than taming the IRGC and its proxies, a US move to drop the Revolutionary Guards’ FTO designation would only provide the group with additional fodder to continue its aggression in the region. This would run counter to Washington’s objective of bringing peace to the Middle East by signing a nuclear pact with Tehran and as Coates and Greenway put it: “If the Revolutionary Guard is delisted in pursuit of the deal, it will once again escalate its terrorist activities around the globe, dangerously disrupting the very peace the deal is supposed to ensure.”