Is US Preparing To Crack Down On IRGC?

A key panel of Congress is getting closer to slapping new sanctions on Iran's revolutionary guards despite warnings that doing so could undermine the nuclear deal with Tehran.

Individual lawmakers over the past few months have introduced several bills encouraging the Obama administration to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, with little traction so far. But now the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue, has begun to coalesce behind the scenes around a similar effort.

…  

“Designating the IRGC as an FTO will provide another warning for foreign companies considering doing business in Iran,” Emanuele Ottolenghi of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified before Ros-Lehtinen's panel in September.

He went on to urge Congress to leverage trade talks with Europe to demand a tougher stance on the IRGC.

“Congress should require the trans-Atlantic trade and investment partnership between the US and the EU to stipulate that any European company contracting with Iran must certify that none of the indigenous partners are associated in part or in whole with the IRGC, requiring also that the EU report annually on European investing in Iran, placing it under public scrutiny,” Ottolenghi said. “At a minimum, Congress should encourage international corporations to demand an exclusion clause to halt commercial activities with all suspected or designated IRGC.”

And Ali Alfoneh, also of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, recommended targeting IRGC ground forces fighting in Syria.

“I would like to punish those entities of the Revolutionary Guard which take part in the war in Syria and we can document their presence in Syria,” Alfoneh testified. “Hopefully [this will help the IRGC] understand the price that they are paying for supporting Bashar [al-]Assad's regime.”

… 

Read the full article here.