What terrorist delisting of Iran’s IRGC would mean for US interests, allies in Middle East

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Updated 24 March 2022
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What terrorist delisting of Iran’s IRGC would mean for US interests, allies in Middle East

  • Tehran reportedly pressing Biden team in Vienna to remove sanctions against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
  • Financial lifeline would enable IRGC to plunge vast new swathes of Middle East into chaos, conflict

WASHINGTON D.C.: US President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly in the final stages of an attempt to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Insiders claim that Tehran is insisting that Washington agree to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

The American negotiating team, led by Special Representative for Iran Rob Malley, believes that it can obtain the concessions and guarantees from the Iranian government necessary for preventing it from becoming a nuclear weapons threshold power.

Analysts think a nuclear-capable Iran would significantly empower the IRGC and likely supercharge its asymmetric-warfare campaign throughout the Middle East.




A woman holds up an illustration of a portrait of Qasem Soleimani during a memorial service marking the second anniversary of his death at a school in Beirut. (File/AFP)

Iran has reportedly been pressing the Biden team to agree to an almost total overhaul of not only economic sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program, but those connected to terrorist activities specifically linked to the IRGC.

Sources report that one of Tehran’s conditions to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name of the nuclear deal, is the removal of the terrorist designation, which equates the IRGC with Daesh, and Al-Qaeda.

The Biden administration has not confirmed the leaks but has made clear it hopes to restore the JCPOA. But there are signs that it may acquiesce to Tehran’s demands.

Critics point to what they see as a serious flaw in the Biden administration’s strategic reasoning.




An Iranian missile launched during a joint military drill dubbed the ‘Great Prophet 17,’ in the southwest of Iran. (AFP/Iran's Revolutionary Guard via SEPAH NEWS)

Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Arab News that the deal under consideration by the Biden administration would neither prevent Iran from eventually developing nuclear weapons nor dissuade the IRGC from conducting terror attacks against American and allied interests.

He said: “Biden officials and, before them, (former US President Barack) Obama officials promised us repeatedly that the nuclear deal would not prevent the United States from working to contain the IRGC on the ground in the Middle East.

“Clearly, the nuclear deal is about much more than nuclear weapons. It will remove all meaningful restrictions on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, thus paving the way to Iran’s early acquisition of a nuclear bomb.”

The IRGC was founded as an ideological custodian of Iran’s 1979 revolution and entrusted with defending the Islamic Republic against internal and external threats. Its participation in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s led to the expansion of both its role and its might, making it Iran’s dominant military force, with its own army, navy, and air force and, later, its own intelligence wing.




A view of a damaged silo at the Saudi Aramco oil facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after the Houthis launched a missile attack on the facility, triggering an explosion and a fire in a fuel tank. (File/AFP)

Over time, it gained an outsized role in executing Iran’s foreign policy and currently wields control over vast segments of the economy. The IRGC has proven to be a favored tool of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to launch plausibly deniable asymmetric attacks using cadres and their proxies who are indoctrinated and trained by Iranian operatives with decades of experience in such operations.

Unsurprisingly, the general consensus of analysts was that lifting both nuclear and terror-related sanctions would inevitably lead to a major cash infusion into IRGC coffers that could only be an incentive for expansion of the organization’s terror activities.

“The move allows people and companies connected to the IRGC to engage in business deals with foreign entities with less scrutiny and move money across the globe more easily,” Saeed Ghasseminejad, a senior adviser on Iran at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Arab News.

“This is in addition to tens of billions of dollars that become available to the regime after the deal, which benefits the IRGC as a key stakeholder of the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Tehran.

“Removing the IRGC from the terror list and lifting sanctions on companies connected to it boosts its financial resources, expands its operational capacity, and increases its political power and regional influence,” he said.

Tehran seems to have seized on signals from the Biden administration, which, while publicly claiming that the Vienna process will not be open-ended, has given Iran significant leeway in dragging out the nuclear negotiations in order to gain maximum leverage and concessions.




Iranian crude oil tanker Sabiti sails in the Red Sea. (File/AFP)

“Washington does not seem to be able to say no to Tehran because the Biden administration wants a nuclear deal almost at any price.

“The IRGC is a terrorist organization and has not changed its behavior or mission. What has changed is that Washington is desperate to reach a deal with the ayatollahs,” Ghasseminejad added.

The IRGC has been implicated in attacks against civilians since the 1980s. Its terror operations have, by most accounts, killed thousands of innocent foreigners, targeting Arabs, Israelis, Americans, and Europeans, from Argentina to Thailand.

Its proxies, particularly the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, actively threaten the Arab world, while building missile capabilities that threaten the very existence of Israel. And while the Biden administration has of late condemned indiscriminate Houthi missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and population centers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, there has been conspicuous silence in the matter of addressing the root of the problem.

Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against a Nuclear Iran, told Arab News that there were compelling national security reasons for keeping the IRGC on America’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

“The FTO designation carries unique criminal and immigration prohibitions, and thus has a legal distinction that other counterterrorism designations, like Executive Order 13224 (issued by former US President George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 terror attacks in America), lack.




A view of an anti-aircraft missile launcher firing a salvo during a joint military exercise between the Iranian army and the IRGC. (File/AFP)

“Delisting the IRGC in exchange for a mere public commitment to de-escalation would set a troubling precedent as it risks cheapening the FTO list, which designates organizations due to their behavior,” Brodsky said.

He pointed out that the IRGC’s local branches in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen could not be disassociated from the resulting outcome of granting the organization what could be a game-changing strategic concession if approved by Biden.

Terror networks operating under separate names while belonging to a common ideological and operational umbrella overseen by the IRGC would not feel compelled by a nuclear deal to alter their behavior, he added.

“It also makes no sense to delist the mother ship from which manpower, money, and materiel flows — the IRGC — while including its satellites like Hezbollah on the FTO list.

“The (US) Department of State has already had a bad experience after it delisted the Houthis as an FTO, and it awkwardly has had to condemn every Houthi attack while trying to justify the decision. Delisting the IRGC as an FTO would be worse,” Brodsky said.

And he noted that the potential financial windfall resulting from the removal of terror sanctions would also play into internal power dynamics within the Iranian regime.




The IRGC take part in five-days military exercises in three Iranian provinces. (File/AFP)

“I would not underestimate the importance to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi of the IRGC’s removal from the FTO list. He harbors ambitions beyond the presidency, specifically the supreme leadership, and he needs the IRGC’s support in that process. This may be one of the reasons why the Iranian establishment has made this a priority,” he added.

In reversing former US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, could the Biden team then be setting a precedent that might significantly weaken America’s standing and diplomatic influence in the Middle East?

Brodsky said: “In pressing for the IRGC’s removal as an FTO, Tehran is seeking a propaganda victory. Most importantly it sends a terrible message to US allies and partners in the region, with whom relations are already strained on a variety of issues.”

Biden’s predecessor took a decidedly different tack when it came to the question of how to react to threats emanating directly from IRGC plots. For instance, a decision such as the targeted killing in 2019 of the IRGC’s leader and most capable commander, Qassem Soleimani, in response to intelligence that he was preparing an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, would be impossible to take were the proposed nuclear deal to go ahead.

Len Khodorkovsky, a former senior US State Department official, said the Biden team was making a fundamental negotiating error in not setting clear red lines for Iran.

“President Biden has decided to do whatever it takes to get back into the JCPOA. That desperation has been used by the Iranian regime to extract outlandish concessions. If you want to know what the IRGC will do after its delisting, just look at what the Houthis have done. Terrorists will always do what they do best — terrorize people,” Khodorkovsky added.

Put simply, if a nuclear deal is signed under the current conditions, Iran’s missiles would continue to threaten Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Baghdad, Irbil, and Tel Aviv while its long terror arm will be thrown a financial lifeline that will enable it to plunge vast new swathes of the Middle East deeper into chaos and conflict.


India evacuates students from Tehran as Israel hits civilian sites

Smoke billows from an explosion in southwest Tehran on June 16, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 57 min 5 sec ago
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India evacuates students from Tehran as Israel hits civilian sites

  • About 6,000 Indian students are enrolled in Iranian universities
  • So far 110 studying in Urmia have left the country through Armenia

NEW DELHI: India’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was moving Indian students out of Tehran, as many sought safety after their universities were shut down amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli attacks on Iran started on Friday, when Tel Aviv hit more than a dozen sites — including key nuclear facilities, residences of military leaders, and of scientists — claiming they were aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Daily attacks have been ongoing for the past five days after Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes against Israel.

As the Israeli military intensified its bombing of civilian targets, hitting Iran’s state broadcaster on Monday, stranded foreigners — including 6,000 Indian students — have been struggling to leave.

“Most of the students here were living in apartments, including me and my friend. The first blast in Tehran happened in Sa’adat Abad district, where me and my friend were living,” Hafsa Yaseen, a medical student at Shahid Beheshti University, told Arab News.

“One of our university’s nuclear scientists was martyred in these blasts. Situation is really bad.”

According to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 224 people have been killed and 1,481 wounded in Israeli attacks since Friday. Most of the casualties have been reported in Tehran.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed in a statement that it was moving those studying at universities in the Iranian capital “out of the city for reasons of safety.”

Yaseen was among a group of a few hundred students moved on Monday to Qom, 140 km south of the capital city.

“Me and my friend were frightened, and we just thought it’s our turn now to die. We were literally calling our parents and telling them goodbye,” she said.

“We are not even safe here, because we are still in Iran (and) anything can happen ... We are in constant fear that we might die and our families are more stressed than us. I just want to request the government of India to evacuate us from here as soon as possible.”

A group of 110 Indian students from Urmia University of Medical Sciences in northwestern Iran has already been assisted by the Indian authorities to leave through the land border with Armenia.

“All the Indian students who had crossed the Iran-Armenia border have now safely reached the capital city, Yerevan. This includes around 90 students from Kashmir Valley, along with others from various Indian states,” said Nasir Khuehami, national convenor of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Union.

“Their flight from Armenia to Delhi is scheduled for tomorrow, with all necessary arrangements being facilitated in coordination with the Indian authorities. This comes as an immense relief to the families.”

The families of those remaining in Iran have been pleading with Indian authorities to also bring them home.

“Please save my daughters. My two daughters study (at) Shahid Beheshti University. They are in great panic — the situation in Tehran is so bad that students are in great panic,” one of the mothers, Mubeena Ali, told Arab News through tears.

“They have been shifted to Qom but they feel afraid ... They are greatly distressed. They want to be evacuated.”


Trump mulls extending travel ban to 36 more nations: source

Updated 17 June 2025
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Trump mulls extending travel ban to 36 more nations: source

  • The Washington Post said it reviewed the internal memo and reported it was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to diplomats who work with the countries
  • The ban at first did not include Egypt, although the proposed follow-up list does

WASHINGTON: The United States is considering extending its travel ban to 36 more countries, a person who has seen the memo said Monday, marking a dramatic potential expansion of entry restrictions to nearly 1.5 billion people.

The State Department early this month announced it was barring entry to citizens of 12 nations including Afghanistan, Haiti and Iran and imposing a partial ban on travelers from seven other countries, reviving a divisive measure from President Donald Trump’s first term.

But expanding the travel ban to three dozen more nations, including US partners like Egypt along with other countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, appears to escalate the president’s crackdown on immigration.

The Washington Post said it reviewed the internal memo and reported it was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to diplomats who work with the countries.

A person who has seen the document confirmed its accuracy to AFP.

It reportedly gives the governments of the listed nations 60 days to meet new requirements established by the State Department.

The countries include the most populous in Africa — Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania — as well as Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Saint Lucia, South Sudan, Syria and Vanuatu.

Should the ban expand to include all countries cited in the memo, nearly one in five people worldwide would live in a country targeted by US travel restrictions.

The 19 countries facing full or partial entry bans to the United States, combined with the 36 cited in the latest memo, account for 1.47 billion people, or roughly 18 percent of the global population.

The State Department declined to confirm the memo, saying it does not comment on internal deliberations.

But it said in a statement that “we are constantly reevaluating policies to ensure the safety of Americans and that foreign nationals follow our laws.”

When the initial ban was announced this month, Trump warned it could be expanded to other countries “as threats emerge around the world.”

The ban at first did not include Egypt, although the proposed follow-up list does.

Trump said the initial measure was spurred by a recent “terrorist attack” on Jews in Colorado.

US officials said that the attack’s suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national according to court documents, was in the country illegally having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022.


Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills 15 and injures 156

Updated 17 June 2025
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Overnight Russian attack on Ukraine kills 15 and injures 156

  • At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours
  • Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said

KYIV: An overnight Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed 15 people and injured 156, local officials said Tuesday, with the main barrage demolishing a nine-story Kyiv apartment building in the deadliest attack on the capital this year.

At least 14 people were killed as explosions echoed across the Ukrainian capital for almost nine hours, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said, destroying dozens of apartments.

Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling the Kyiv attack “one of the most terrifying strikes” on the capital.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said 139 people were injured in Kyiv. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko announced that Wednesday would be an official day of mourning.

The attack came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year.

Russia steps up aerial attacks

Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it strikes only military targets.

Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people.

The intensified long-range strikes have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its Western partners.

Uncertainty about US policy on the war has fueled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Zelensky had been set to meet with US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday to press him for more help. But Trump returned early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Middle East.

Ukraine tries to keep the world’s attention

Zelensky is seeking to prevent Ukraine from being sidelined in international diplomacy. Trump said earlier this month it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” before pulling them apart and pursuing peace, but European leaders have urged him to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into accepting a ceasefire.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday it is unclear when another round of talks might take place.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia’s attacks during the G7 summit showed Putin’s “total disrespect” for the US and other countries.

“Russia not only rejects a ceasefire or a leaders’ meeting to find solutions and end the war. It cynically strikes Ukraine’s capital while pretending to seek diplomatic solutions,” Sybiha wrote on social media.

Ukrainian forces have hit back against Russia with their own domestically produced long-range
drones.

The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as those in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod as a precaution.

Overnight Russian drone strikes also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration.

Putin “is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,” Zelensky said.

Russian attack demolishes apartment building

The Russian attack delivered “direct hits on residential buildings,” the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. “Rockets — from the upper floors to the basement,” it said.

A US citizen died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters.

Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said.

“We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,” he told reporters at the scene of one attack.

Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly leveled her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors.

“It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life,” she said. “There’s no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It’s horrible when people just die at night.”

People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Fires broke out in two other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the mayor said.

Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency staged an audacious operation targeting warplanes in air bases deep inside Russian territory on June 1.


Spain says April power outage caused by ‘overvoltage’

Updated 17 June 2025
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Spain says April power outage caused by ‘overvoltage’

  • Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen said the system “lacked sufficient voltage control capacity” that day
  • Authorities have been scrambling to find answers after the April 28 outage

MADRID: A major power outage that struck the Iberian Peninsula in April was caused by “overvoltage” on the grid that led to “a chain reaction,” according to a government report released Tuesday.

The blackout had “multiple” causes, Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen told reporters following a cabinet meeting, adding the system “lacked sufficient voltage control capacity” that day.

Overvoltage is when there is too much electrical voltage in a network, overloading equipment. It can be caused by surges in networks due to oversupply or lightning strikes, or when protective equipment is insufficient or fails.

When faced with overvoltage on networks protective systems shut down parts of the grid, potentially leading to widespread power outages.

Authorities have been scrambling to find answers after the April 28 outage cut Internet and telephone connections, halted trains, shut businesses and plunged cities into darkness across Spain and Portugal as well as briefly affecting southwestern France.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the formation of an inquiry commission led by the Ecological Transition Ministry shortly after the blackout, urging residents not to speculate until detailed results were available.

He had warned that the probe’s conclusions could take several months, given the complexity of the incident.

Aagesen singled out the role of the Spanish grid operator REE and certain energy companies she did not name which disconnected their plants “inappropriately... to protect their installations.”

She also pointed to “insufficient voltage control capacity” on the system that day, due in part to a programming flaw, stressing that Spain’s grid is theoretically robust enough to handle such situations.

Due to these misjudgments “we reached a point of no return with an uncontrollable chain reaction” that could only have been controlled if steps had been taken beforehand to absorb the overvoltage problems, she added.


UK slaps new sanctions on Russia shadow fleet

Updated 17 June 2025
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UK slaps new sanctions on Russia shadow fleet

  • Security analysts say the fleet of aging vessels is used by Russia to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil
  • Hundreds of vessels have now been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK

LONDON: The UK on Tuesday tightened its sanctions on Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, slapping bans on 20 more ships and blacklisting 10 other people or bodies involved in energy and shipping.

Security analysts say the fleet of aging vessels is used by Russia to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil.

Hundreds of vessels have now been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The UK’s new additions to its assets freeze list include the Orion Star group and Rosneft Marine (UK), both said to be significant to Russia’s energy sector, as well as the deep-sea research unit at the Russian defense ministry.

Although Russia’s economy has not collapsed under the sanctions, officials insist they are having an impact.

“Russia’s economy is slowing and the Kremlin has been forced to make increasingly painful trade-offs to support its war effort,” Downing Street said in a statement.

It claimed the sanctions imposed in the last three years “have deprived Russia of at least $450 billion.”

“By one estimate, that’s equivalent to around two more years of funding for the invasion,” it added.

The UK alone has sanctioned over 2,300 individuals, entities and ships since the start of the
invasion.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted to hone the new sanctions with Britain’s other G7 partners meeting this week in Canada.

“We should take this moment to increase economic pressure and show President Putin it is in his — and Russia’s interests — to demonstrate he is serious about peace.”

With peace talks stalling, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to press US counterpart Donald Trump to step up sanctions on Russia at the G7 summit.

But as the conflict between Iran and Israel escalated, Trump left the summit early without meeting Zelensky, saying he had “big stuff” to do in Washington. And he has proved reluctant about new sanctions.

The EU has imposed 18 rounds of sanctions on Russia.

Downing Street said “new information” showed Western were creating “significant challenges” for Russian state enterprises, including funding shortfalls, delays in major projects, and growing debt due to high interest rates.