Biden Opposed To Removal Of IRGC From Terror List But Questions Remain

Amir-Abdollahian, and the nuclear negotiating team, have been under fire from ultra-hardliners' in the past few days over the contents of a possible agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Ultra-hardliner lawmakers close to the Paydari Front and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have in the past few days strongly criticized Amir-Abdollahian and the negotiation team for what they say is agreeing to make too many concessions to the US and other Western powers. The "red lines" set by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Parliament, they say, have been crossed.

In a Twitter post on Thursday, Hadi Beiginejad, a hardliner lawmaker claimed that he has examined a "draft of the agreement" and found not only it fails to safeguard Iran's national interests, but it brings on "many more dangers" than the original JCPOA.

Defending the foreign minister in an interview with the official news agency IRNA on Thursday, another lawmaker Ardeshir Motahari responded that some lawmakers were making claims that would only lead to "weakening the negotiating team and the foreign minister".

"Some people are a bowl that is hotter than the soup when it comes to analyzing the process of the talks. They should know being in the middle of the field is very different from making analysis sitting behind a desk," Motahari said about critics of the current negotiators.

In an interview with Gharn-e No in March, Abolfazl Hasanbeigi, former lawmaker and member of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, named the Paydari ultra-hardliners in the Parliament as the main opponents of the restoration of the JCPOA who are "few" but "shout" loudly to "keep themselves alive".

Motahari refuted the claims of those who have said their criticisms are based on a "draft of an agreement" and said everyone should believe Amir-Abdollahian if he says there is no draft yet. He also noted that "higher officials", presumably Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, are always receiving reports on the process of the talks and receiving advice.

In late February and early March all sides involved in the Vienna talks that started in April 2021 were expressing optimism over the restoration of the JCPOA but on Wednesday the US Secretary of State Antoni Blinken said he was not "overly optimistic" with the prospect of a deal.

The most important of Iran’s ‘red lines’ is presumably removing the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). The Biden administration has reportedly agreed to delist the IRGC but only if Iran agrees not to seek revenge for the US killing of the IRGC's Qods Force commander, Ghasem Soleimani, and to change its behavior in the region.

"Who can believe that any negotiator -- who has been fighting with foreign sides over an issue as important as the restoration of the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions, with the blessing of the system (nezam) -- would not abide by the system's red lines and make an agreement," Mohammad-Sadegh Kharrazi, a former reformist diplomat, asked in a commentary in Ettelaat newspaper on Thursday.

In Iranian media and political discourse, system (nezam), usually refers to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate authority to call the shots on important issues.

On Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Milley told a Congressional hearing that he opposes removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the US terror list and believes the Qods Force to be a terrorist organization.

“I’d say that the President shares the chairman’s [Gen. Milley] view that IRGC-Quds Forces are terrorists, and beyond that, we aren’t going to comment on… topics in the nuclear talks,” Deputy State Department Spokesperson Jalina Porter said.

Negotiations that started one year ago in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as JCPOA are in a state of limbo after Iran demanded the removal of IRGC from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization blacklist. The Biden Administration has apparently not made a decision on Iran’s demand.

Most Republicans and many Democratic lawmakers have increasingly voiced opposition to delisting the IRGC, which has created a network of militant proxy groups in the Middle East and threatens US allies.

The nuance in the State Department statement is about whether President Biden considers the whole of IRGC a terrorist organization or is trying to only keep the Qods Force on the terror list and remove the larger organization to reach a deal with Tehran.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, "In my personal opinion I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization and I do not support them being delisted from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list."

Milley’s remarks were worded very carefully as he differentiated the IRGC from the Quds Force -- its extraterritorial military wing – suggesting that the Biden administration may considering delisting the IRGC as an FTO but keeping its Quds Force as a terrorist organization.

Such a move may be intended to resolve one of the remaining issues in talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA that have reached a deadlock over Iran’s demand to delist the IRGC.

The Trump administration added the IRGC to the list in 2019. Iran insists that delisting the IRGC is a requirement and 'red line' for a deal, and its foreign ministry blames Washington for the delay in reaching a deal, saying the halt in the Vienna talks is due to US failure to make a "political decision".

The Biden administration has apparently not made a decision yet, amid rising opposition by Republican congressmen as well as a growing

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday that Iran would not be able to receive in US dollars its special drawing rights (SDRs), a supplementary asset allocated by the IMF as a potential claim on the “freely usable currencies of member states.” The system is used by the fund to assist member states in the interests of the global economy, with the largest ever allocation approved in August 2021 to help countries cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Iran has been short of foreign reserves, especially dollars, since the US in 2018 imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions threatening third parties buying Iranian oil or dealing with Tehran’s financial sector. Talks in Vienna between Iran and world powers have been taking place for a year to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which eased sanction in return for curbs on Iran’s atomic program.

Yellen’s remarks came in response to Louisiana senator John Neely Kennedy − an opponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal − who said Wednesday he wanted to know why the US administration was ‘supporting’ the IMF in allocating SDRs to Russia, Iran, and China.

The senator told the Washington Examiner that not enough attention was paid to what he claimed was the US backing the allocation of $650 billion in SDRs in 2021. Kennedy appeared to be referring to the total amount of SDRs allocated last year – by the IMF, not the US administration − expressed as a dollar equivalent.

‘Gift to Iran’

The Washington Examiner claimed Iran had in 2021 received $4.5 billion in SDRs, Russia $17 billion, and China $40 billion. “We ought to hold hearings and ask why” the US had approved this, Kennedy said. “There is some reason they wanted to do this, this is a gift to Iran, it’s a gift to China.”

Abdolnaser Hemmati, then governor of the Central Bank of Iran, said April 19, 2020, that Iran had asked to receive its SDRs as allocated by the IMF, which he valued at 3.6 billion in terms of US dollars.

SDRs are set in terms of a basket based on the US dollar, the Chinese renminbi, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound. A recent IMF paper highlighted the long-term decline of the dollar in international reserves, losing ground both to the Chinese renminbi and smaller currencies, and there has been growing criticism of the US ‘politicizing’ the dollar as an international currency. Despite US and western European sanctions, Russian international reserves increased $2.1 billion over the week ending April 1, reaching the equivalent of $606.5 bn, according to the Bank of Russia. Europe continued to buy oil and gas from Russia, but most of the reserves are frozen by Western sanctions.

In a brief interview with Iran International’s correspondent Arash Alaei on Thursday, the Texas Republican Senator said the reason the administration doesn’t want everybody to know about the details “unfortunately is the deal they’re negotiating [which] is a terrible deal for America”.

“Joe Biden has asked [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to negotiate on our behalf, and Russia is negotiating with Iran right now in Vienna. Russia is our enemy and Iran is our enemy”, he added, noting that “the one thing they can agree on is policies that endanger the safety and security of America”.

“This deal is a catastrophic mistake and that’s why the Biden administration is so desperate to hide the details of it from the elected members of the Congress”, Cruz said.

Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran known as JCPOA in 2018, saying it was in adequate to keep Tehran from building nuclear weapons. He imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. President Joe Biden announced before the 2020 presidential elections that Trump’s policy was wrong, and he would work to revive the JCPOA.

Republicans have opposed Biden’s approach from the beginning and their objections became more intense as reports emerged that the White House was weighing the removal of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). More Democrats have lately joined the opposition as talks in Vienna to revive the JCPOA have stalled.

About the administration’s options in case of the collapse of the deal, he said, “What they should do is return to the policy of [Donald Trump’s] maximum pressure; they should impose sanctions, they should enforce sanctions”.

Slamming Biden for easing on the oil sanctions that has seen Iran increase its oil exports and revenues, he said, “Right now the Biden administration is turning a blind eye while Iran openly flouts the oil sanctions. The Biden administration is allowing the Ayatollah to sell a million barrels of oil a day with no consequences”.

“The Biden administration has delisted [Iran-backed] Houthis as terrorists even as they carry out ongoing terror attacks”, Cruz said, adding that “the answer is to reverse course entirely; end their policies of weakness, appeasement, and surrender, and instead follow a policy of maximum pressure to prevent the ayatollah from developing nuclear weapons and carrying out terror attacks against Americans and our allies”.