Iran Focus
London, 11 Mar – The Trump administration is deliberating whether to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organisation. It has already put Iran “on notice” and has issued sanctions following the country’s ballistic missile testing.
The US President and many of his officials have spoken about the provocative and hostile behaviour of Iran.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee during the week, CENTCOM commander Gen. Joseph L. Votel said that Iran “poses the greatest long-term threat to stability for this part of the world”.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley also declared that Iran is a threat and said that terrorists are using Syria as a safe haven. She reiterated the importance of expelling Iran from Syria.
The main Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), revealed last week information about how the IRGC is able to carry out terrorist and illegal activities relatively discreetly.
The NCRI was able to obtain the information from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran’s (PMOI/MEK) sources inside Iran.
A revealing piece of information is that the IRGC owns 90 of the 212 piers registered in the country. The docks are used by the IRGC to transfer weapons, ammunition and other military apparatus to its militias in other areas of the Middle East.
The IRGC started to acquire these ports from the early years of the Iranian regime under the orders of the Supreme Leader at that time. The aim was to give the IRGC a way to evade international monitoring of the illegal activities taking place.
The current Supreme Leader of Iran has continued to adhere to the objective and the IRGC are still happy to oblige.
This has resulted in the IRGC having control of a huge portion of the Iranian economy. A large percentage of the imports and exports of Iran are controlled by the IRGC and it is ruining local trade.
The profits made by the IRGC every year total around $12 billion. A lot of this money gets funnelled back into terrorism or meddling abroad, or towards the country’s ballistic missile and nuclear program.
As well as owning almost half of the docks in the country, the IRGC also owns large oil tankers and uses shipping companies to carry out illegal activities.
The US branch of the NCRI also held a press conference to highlight a publication named “The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards’ Financial Empire: How the Supreme Leader and the IRGC Rob the People to Fund International Terror”. It is about the IRGC’s increasing role in the economy of Iran.
Experts were in attendance to reiterate how the IRGC is gaining increasing control over the resources of Iran.
