Politicians, Activists Express Urgency In Fight To Proscribe IRGC

Politicians, diplomats, opposition leaders and activists convened Thursday to urge the UK and EU nations to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

During a roundtable online conference hosted by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, speakers gave passionate calls for a galvanization in the international fight against the dangerous military arm of the Iranian regime coupled with impassioned and insightful discourse.

Last week, Britain's home secretary Suella Braverman said Iran's Revolutionary Guard poses a serious risk to UK’s national security amid fresh evidence of its reach.

British-Iranian activist Vahid Beheshti, who was on hunger strike and camped outside London’s Foreign Office earlier this year as part of his bid to raise awareness about atrocities being committed in his homeland and to pressure Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government to proscribe the IRGC as a terror organization spoke from his mobile phone from London. “Suella’s comment was a great big step in our objective and now I think we are not far from proscription,” he said, offering hope to the many lobbying, while intelligence revelations last week showed Iran to be the biggest threat to the UK.

Lord Stuart Polak, a vocal opposer of the Iranian regime praised Beheshti’s continued campaign and said that combined with the work of journalists in the UK, “the pressure is beginning to tell”. Stressing the need to keep the pressure on the government, he said: “We need to keep lobbying and it will happen, it is about just how long it takes.”

Mohsen Sazegara, Former Iranian Deputy Prime Minister, claimed that 90% of Iranians are ready to remove the regime. “The dominant discourse at the heart of this revolution is a call for democracy and human rights and desire to join the trend of globalization in the world,” he said, as Iranians face the worst economic crisis in decades, many pushed below the poverty line and desperate for a ray of hope.

Other key speakers came from the US, where calls come from both Republicans and Democrats to proscribe the IRGC. David Wurmser, Former Adviser on Middle East to US Vice President Dick Cheney called IRGC the “primary agent of chaos” and stressed the need to move forward with designation without considering any deals.

John Bolton, Former US Ambassador to the UN, who called Iran a “rogue state” said the biggest opportunity for pro-democratic forces in Iran will come when the 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dies and there is a regime change. “This will be the point when the government is most vulnerable and most fragile and although it is a day that may appear to be remote, it could happen any day and we need to be ready for it.”

The discussion was bolstered by points from European politicians such as Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, former Italian Foreign Minister, who stressed that the sanctions taken against a few IRGC individuals was not enough and that “we need to continue until we have obtained our objective that IRGC are on the blacklist.” The issue of proscription has caused division in the EU, like in the UK and US, where the nuclear agenda weighs heavily on the minds of lawmakers. Agata called for all EU member states to ban the IRGC and rally against the “crimes of aggression” that the group is perpetrating at home and abroad.

Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamliel gave opening remarks to the roundtable, titled ‘The Path to a Democratic Iran’ during which she said: “On behalf of the free world we urge our friends in the UK and EU to take a stand today for moral clarity and outlaw IRGC.”

She said the 88 million Iranian people were being held hostage to terror and torture and that the international community must give Iranians support to see a way for solutions towards freedom and democracy. “The people of Israel stand firmly with the people of Iran and time is of the essence,” she said.