US Republican lawmaker Claudia Tenney has released a comprehensive report on the activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, calling on US allies to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group.
Representative Tenney (Rep-NY) released the reportaccompanied by a bi-partisan resolution on Thursday, detailing the IRGC’s “terrorist activities around the world” and urging Washington’s partners and allies to join the United States in labeling the body as a terrorist organization.
Several groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, United Against Nuclear Iran, and Foundation for Defense of Democracies, contributed to the 20-page report.
Former US officials, namely former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates and former Special Representative for Iran Elliott Abrams, also shared their views and experiences about the IRGC in the report.
“Combatting the IRGC is one of the most urgent national security agenda items today,” said Congresswoman Tenney. “Congress is united in opposing the IRGC’s terror campaign. This designation will increase pressure and send a clear message to the Islamic Republic that its terror campaigns must stop,” she noted.
Tenney’s bipartisan resolution specifically urges the European Union to expeditiously designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization under the European Union’s Common Position 931.
The former US envoy on Iran, Abrams, said in the report: “The IRGC is a global threat that requires a global response. If the IRGC can run free in Europe and Asia it can threaten Americans and our allies, move more money and weapons, and build its strength. We need to press every friendly nation to close the gaps and loopholes that allow the IRGC to survive and thrive as a danger to all of us—and as the main oppressor of the Iranian people.”
Pompeo, a vocal critic of Iran, said: “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a militant terrorist organization that answers only to Supreme Leader Khamenei, who uses the IRGC to spread terror and mayhem in the name of his theocratic regime."
The report breaks down the threats into domestic, as it crushes voices of dissent in the dictatorship, and regional and global threats.
The comprehensive report lists Middle East states where the militia is carrying out its operations, funding other affiliated leaders and groups in internal struggles or civil wars.
“The IRGC funds belligerents that support the Iranian regime and promote similar schools of extremist religious thought,” the report stated, enumerating the group’s activities in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, as well as Gaza, Judea, and Samaria – which encompasses the entire West Bank.
By attacking dissidents directly or working through proxies to fuel terrorism, the threats go far beyond the Middle East, acknowledged the authors who went on to list some of the terrorist acts by the IRGC, including the attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in July 1994, assassinations at Mykonos Restaurant in Germany in September 1992, and plotting to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton in August 2022.
The US lawmaker’s report also points to the Islamic Republic’s supply of weapons for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as another global threat posed by the IRGC. “Russia and Iran announced a $1 billion deal to build a factory in Russia to produce up to 6,000 Iranian-designed drones to use against Ukraine in Russia’s war of aggression,” the report claimed.
The international community must unite against the threat, wrote Michael Makovsky, the CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
“Today, the IRGC is the most dangerous terrorist group on the planet, with the history, capability, and intention to conduct attacks across six continents,” he said.
The state-sponsored event is held guised as defending the rights of Palestinians but serves as a phenomenon to perpetuate antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda among the Muslim world under the auspices of a collective cause propagated by Iran's dictator.
The day, which takes its name from the Arabic-language name for Jerusalem, is often described as the official demonstration in support of the Revolutionary Guards Quds (Qods) Force – an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations – because it seeks to justify the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing activities across the region.
Directed against Israel’s existence, Al-Quds Day was proclaimed by the founder of the Islamic Republic Ruhollah Khomeini on 7 August 1979. He called on Muslims worldwide to unite in solidarity against Israel and in support of the Palestinians, saying the "liberation" of Jerusalem was a “religious duty to all Muslims”.
Among the most salient programs during the day is burning the flags of Israel, the United States, the UK and other countries that the Islamic Republic deems as enemies, no matter their role in the conflicts between Israel and Palestinians. Effigies of Western officials in chains are also among the sights of the regime’s carnival of hate.
Almost all the regime’s insiders are socially obligated to attend the event as a renewal of allegiances with one of the main foreign policy issues of the Islamic Republic, the destruction of the State of Israel.
The president and his cabinet ministers as well as members of the parliament, prominent politicians and their entourage and so many other officials from the inner circles of the regime are usually seen during the rallies.
Such state-sponsored events are usually shunned by the general public and the regime ends up transporting paramilitary Basij forces and its supporters from small towns to provincial capitals to form demonstrations with large crowds for the façade of mass support.
As he was walking along his large retinue while people were chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" around him, President Ebrahim Raisi spoke to reporters, emphasizing that “the collapse of the Zionist regime is very close”. Repeated relentlessly with a sense of spiritual foreboding by the Supreme Leader and his cronies, Israel is ironically about to celebrate its 75th year. According to Khamenei’s prophecy, Israel has 17 years left until its downfall.
Raisi reiterated that the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem) is imminent; “Closer than you can imagine,” adding that “the normalization of relations with regional states [such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain] has not brought and will not bring security for the Zionist regime.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf delivered the final speech of the event at Enqelab (revolution) Square after droves of people were guided to the final venue from 10 routes designated for the rallies throughout the capital Tehran. As it was expected, he emphasized that resistance is the only way to achieve success and ultimate victory over Israel.
“Quds Day is a very significant and influential day for the Muslim Ummah and Islamic countries,” he said. “Quds Day indicates that success and victory could be attained only through resistance”. Ghalibaf also lauded recent Iran-backed Palestinian missile strikes into Israel from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, saying all Palestinian groups have closed ranks to liberate al-Quds (Jerusalem), which he described as the capital of the Muslim world.
The Islamic Republic is so invested in the idea of resistance that it calls its proxy forces and aligned militia across the region “the axis of resistance,” mainly organized by the IRGC’s Quds force. Its current commander Esmail Qaani was also present in the rallies and photos and banners of his predecessor Qassem Soleimani – killed January 2020 by a US drone attack in Baghdad — abounded throughout the event.
The IRGC’s commander-in-chief Hossein Salami also delivered a speech at the event, claiming that Israel is on the brink of destruction, and that it cannot prevent the arming of Palestinians in the West Bank, referring to the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which openly admit funding from and affiliations to Iran.
“There are operations in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, and the regime that surrounds itself like a barracks and has the strongest and most modern security systems cannot prevent the arming of the West Bank and the operations of the Palestinian forces,” he said.
This year, the Islamic Republic also released a communiqué at the end of the event – dubbed the Quds Day Resolution – threatening states that have restored relations with Israel, a veiled warning against Saudi Arabia and its allies which are bolstering ties with Jerusalem.
The regime in Tehran, which is in the middle of rapprochement with Riyadh, did not directly mention Saudi Arabia in its Quds day statement, and prevented people from chanting slogans against the Al Saud, a prevalent motto in previous years.
As the regime continues to fight a losing battle against the tide of hijab rebellion, a trigger for months of violent unrest in the country, the day’s final statement reiterated the regime’s rhetoric that the “hijab is one of the necessities of Islam, and not observing it is a religious and political haram and will cause the foundations of families to weaken.”
