US Official To Visit Mideast To Warn Against Russia, Iran Sanctions Violations

Swedish democrat Charlie Weimers, member of Belgian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs Darya Safai, and Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius as well as many other activists such as RAND think tank analyst Alireza Nader and Stockholm-based rights defender Iraj Mesdaghi were among the participants. 

The organizers and speakers of the meeting said they gathered together with the aim of providing more information to international and intergovernmental organizations and raise awareness about the reality of the IRGC. The session focused on two issues of the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in suppressing the antigovernment protests by the Iranian people and supplying arms for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to the members of the parliament and political activists, the approval of the 32-point resolution adopted by the European Parliament on January 19, which called on the EU and member states to designate IRGC as a terrorist outfit, did not persuade the EU to take that step.

The European Parliament’s resolution also urged the EU to expand its sanctions list to cover all individuals and entities responsible for human rights violations and their family members, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri and all foundations (‘bonyads’) linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG).

During the Friday session, Weimers said, “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – or the IRGC -- stands up on behalf of the mullah's evil republic through tyranny murder and terrorism,” adding that “the IRGC is a force for political terror both at home and abroad.” It has trained, financed, armed and provided a safe haven for groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been listed as terrorists by many countries. 

He also called on the EU to permanently suspend the talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, expressing regret that many members of parliament still hope that the agreement bears the fruits they seek. 

The IRGC supported or motivated terrorist acts abroad, he said, noting that since the IRGC has provided support for assassinations, hijackings, bombings, kidnappings cyber-attacks, espionage, surveillance of Iranian dissidents, propaganda, delivery of explosives and arms all over Europe. 

After the session, the Dutch justice minister twitted, “The Iranian Revolutionary Guards terrorize demonstrators fighting for freedom in Iran,” adding, “On behalf of the Netherlands, I again advocated adding the IRGC to the European terrorism list or imposing additional sanctions. We must continue to support the people of Iran.”

The issue of adding the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) to the list of Europe’s terrorist entities became a rallying point for the Iranian diaspora, which launched online campaigns and held a large protest in Strasbourg on January 16 to lobby the European Parliament for passing the resolution.

The Iranian expatriates and members of the European Parliament also called for another gathering to push for the IRGC terrorist designation in Brussels on February 20. 

The IRGC played a major role in suppressing antigovernment protests in the past four months, overseeing several security agencies that have killed over 500 civilians, jailed over 20,000 people and inflicted lasting injuries on hundreds of people.

Many officials of the European Union, including foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, are not in favor of sanctioning the IRGC, as they are concerned that the Islamic Republic will not be forthcoming in nuclear talks with the West. Negotiations that began in April 2021 to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, came to a deadlock last September. In the meantime, Tehran has supplied kamikaze drones to Russia, which are used in attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

The West has stepped up pressure on Iran over its crackdown on protests and arms supply for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the US, the European Union and United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran. In a retaliatory move, the Islamic Republic also designated over 30 European and British individuals and entities. 

Also on Friday, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola condemned the decision of the Iranian regime to sanction several MEPs, as well as journalists, human rights defenders and institutions, underlining that “Women have the right to protest. Women's lives and women’s liberties are inviolable. The European Parliament will not stop fighting for these fundamental values. We will not stop standing up for freedom, dignity and equality. We will not be silenced.”

In a face-to-face with our correspondent Arash Alaei, Dennis Ross said that the Islamic Republic has lost its chance to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with making extra demands, noting that now the only move that may kickstart the talks is a halt in Tehran’s uranium enrichment to over five-percent purity. 

Iran should not be enriching to 60 percent or even 20 percent, he said, adding that the Islamic Republic is crossing thresholds that may push the Biden administration to a path that it would not like to pursue, he said. The Biden administration might say “what was on the table is no longer on the table. You had a chance to do the JCPOA and you chose to try to get more,” he added. 

He said that the administration sought a longer and stronger deal since the beginning, speculating that if they want to agree on a deal, it will not be going back to the JCPOA. “The deal has to apply for much longer; it has to be stronger, then there would be readiness to talk about a deal,” he said, foreseeing that Washington would ask Tehran to give up more if it wants to potentially get more.

Ross was the director of policy planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, and a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia -- which includes Iran -- to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Referring to the recent round of Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic officials, Ross said that this is a message to Tehran that “we are collectively hardening our approach because of the behavior of the Iranian regime.” He added that slapping the Revolutionary Guard with the terrorism label by the Europeans has never been really considered. Ross mentioned the coordination among the US and its allies to close the loopholes so that Iran cannot sell its oil as another measure that showed the world is standing against the regime.

All of these indicate that “the Islamic Regime needs to understand that life is going to become more difficult for them if they stay in the path they are on,” he underlined. 

The West on Monday stepped up pressure on Iran over its crackdown on protests and arms supply for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the US, the European Union and United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran. However, the EU stopped short of designating the IRGC a terrorist outfit, as the European Parliament had voted last week to urge the block to do.

He said that the regime is enriching uranium to the levels that have no civilian use, elaborating that Iran “continues to move ahead with its nuclear program. It has 16 cascades of advanced centrifuges – the IR6s -- that are enriching to 60 percent, for which there is no justifiable civilian purpose.” “When you enrich uranium, you can rationalize it saying we’re going to use it to generate electrical power. When you enrich to 60 percent, you have one purpose in mind.” 

The Islamic Republic “has probably four bombs worth of enriched material to 60 percent,” adding that “60 percent is not weapons grade but it’s close to weapons grade,” Ross said. It means it takes very little time for them to turn the fissile material into bombs, he added. “You still have to take that fissile material and take it to weapons. There is a big difference between enrichment, which is taking place in large facilities and the process of weaponization, which can be taking place in facilities that we wouldn’t be aware of,” Ross warned. 

The Middle East expert believes that Iranians are playing with fire. If the Biden administration says, “we will prevent you from having a nuclear weapon, they are pushing the Biden administration towards what will be a military action, even if that's not what the Biden administration would prefer to do.” 

About the joint military war games by the US and Israel -- their biggest so far with thousands of forces, a dozen ships, and 142 aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers – he said the nature of this maneuver is unprecedented as they have integrated every domain. “They are doing it in space, they are doing it in air with aircraft, they are doing it in cyber, they are doing it on the ground, and they are doing it with naval. All these separate domains, all these separate forces are being integrated between the two and they include suppression of air defenses; it includes B52 bombers,” he added. The scope of such war games “involves a kind of action the US and Israel would be taking if there was a decision to carry out the use of force against Iran’s nuclear program.” He described the drills as a rehearsal or preparation for such an action against Iran, he highlighted. 

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) told Iran International’s Arash Alaei on Wednesday that the Biden administration should never officially walk away from the negotiations. 

However, he added that "I was not happy with the original JCPOA. I was not happy with us leaving the JCPOA. I always supported a longer and stronger agreement, so I think this is a matter on which the US needs to be more in harmony with Europe.” 

Talks initiated by the Biden Administration in April 2021 to return to the accord known as JCPOA faltered last September. Following this failure, protests that began in Iran were brutally suppressed by the government, which led to more isolation for the clerical regime.

Referring to State Department’s neither confirming nor denying recent meetings between US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley and Tehran's UN ambassador in New York, Cardin said such moves depend on strategic issues and the effectiveness of backchannel conversations. 

Another Democrat, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he believes “it’s not likely to reach an agreement anytime soon but I would hope that we continue to pursue that.” “We were in a better posture, if we had that agreement (the JCPOA) in place.”

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) told our correspondent that "We should not be negotiating with Iran except to make sure they start giving liberty and freedom to their citizens and stop being a menace to the world.”

The United States and its European allies say that they are not focused on the nuclear talks with Iran because of Tehran’s human rights violations and its arms support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Hundreds of people demonstrated near central bank headquarters in Baghdad Wednesday to protest at the recent slide of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar that has triggered a rise in prices of imported consumer goods.

Hundreds from different Iraqi regions waved Iraqi flags or carried banners demanding government intervention to stop the dinar's decline to around 1,620 to the greenback from 1,470 in November.

The dinar went into a tailspin against the dollar after the New York Federal Reserve imposed tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November to halt the illegal siphoning of dollars to neighboring Iran, which is under tough US sanctions.

Under the curbs that took effect this month, Iraqi banks must use an online platform to reveal their transaction details. But most private banks have not registered on the platform and resorted to informal black markets in Baghdad to buy dollars.

This has created dollar shortages as demand has outstripped supply and accelerated the dinar's descent against the greenback.

“Our demands are clear: government must intervene to stop the decline of dinar value because we’re suffering from high prices in local markets,” said Asaad Khudhaer, a laborer who came from the southern city of Najaf to attend the protest.

“Stop the neighbors stealing our dollars,” one banner read, alluding to Iran.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani replaced the central bank governor on Monday as he had not taken effective steps to tackle the consequences of the new Fed regulations and their impact on the dinar, government sources told Reuters.

“As Iran’s largest oil customer, the PRC remains a top focus for our sanctions enforcement,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing with reporters.

For two years, the department has stayed low-key on the issue of China violating US oil sanctions on Iran and buying ever-increasing volumes of crude oil at discounted prices.

“We don’t preview potential sanctions actions, but we continue to monitor Iran’s oil exports and to engage Iran’s trading partners about the possibility of exposure to US sanctions,” Price added.

But these efforts and engagements with different countries have not been effective as Iran increased its oil exports from around 250,000 barrels per day in 2019 to more than one million, according to estimates. For some reason, China was buying less than 200,000 barrels a day during the Trump administration, while in 2022 it was buying around 700,000 barrels to most industry estimates.

Neither China nor Iran announce the volume of their oil trade, which takes place through intermediaries who make tanker-to-tanker oil transfers, mix cargoes, and forge documents to hide the source of the oil.

Chinese imports from Iran began to increase in late 2020, exactly when candidate Joe Biden in September of that year announced his plans to return to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which Trump had abandoned two years earlier.

The new administration began indirect negotiations with Iran in April 2021, and China, as a signatory of the 2015 deal known as the JCPOA, was part of the talks in Vienna. From all appearances, Iran dragged out the talks for 18 months and in the end refused to accept a compromise deal put on the table by the European Union.

In the meantime, Tehran was selling ever-increasing volumes of oil to Chinese refineries and making tens of billions of dollars.

At the same time, the Biden administration was signaling that sanctions imposed by its predecessor were not effective to force Iran to curtail its nuclear program, and they should be lifted to revive the JCPOA. At the same time, the administration kept the sanctions on the books to put pressure on Tehran and occasionally announced sanctions on individuals and companies caught red-handed in facilitating sanctions’ violations.

“We, during the course of this administration, have levied multiple tranches of designations targeting Iran’s illicit petroleum and petrochemical trade over the past year or so,” Price said on Tuesday.

But to what extent there was serious pressure on Beijing, is not clear. It seems that the administration now admits its efforts have been ineffective and it intends to increase that pressure.

The new focus began only when the nuclear talks came to a halt in September, just when popular protests broke out in Iran that were met with a brutal and deadly government response that became world headlines.

The administration changed its tune in October, saying that it is no longer focused on JCPOA and its attention is on the struggle of the Iranian people who were demanding their basic rights. Price reiterated the new policy once again on Tuesday, admitting that Iranians “renege on commitments, and “This was a pattern that we’d seen from Iran.”

Another factor that left little option for the Biden team except adopting a tougher posture was Iran’s delivery of kamikaze drones to Russia that have been used against civilian targets in Ukraine.