Page 9 - MEOG Week 16 2022
P. 9
MEOG POLICY & SECURITY MEOG
Biden increasingly unlikely to
remove IRGC terrorist designation
IRAN US President Joe Biden seems increasingly goes beyond the JCPOA, they’ll need to address
determined to keep the “terrorist” designa- concerns of ours that go beyond the JCPOA,” US
tion on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard State Department spokesman Ned Price said this
Corps (IRGC), which Tehran is demanding be week.
removed if it is to return to a deal on curbing its Washington Post columnist David Ignatius
nuclear programme, AFP reported on April 20. has reported that Biden was preparing to rule out
“Each side is just hoping that the other would the IRGC’s removal from the blacklist. “I don’t
blink first,” Ali Vaez, an Iran expert from the think the final decision has been taken yet, but
International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention the president is certainly leaning in that direc-
think tank, told the news agency. tion,” the Crisis Group’s Vaez was further quoted
The matter of the designation – introduced as saying by AFP.
by former US president Donald Trump in a Vaez recognizes that any compromise
move that raised eyebrows as Washington had worked out with Iran on such a sensitive issue
never before designated the armed forces of a as the designation “would be used by the oppo-
sovereign nation in such a way – appears to have nents and critics to crucify the Biden administra-
deadlocked the Vienna talks on reviving the tion” by denouncing its weakness in the face of a
2015 nuclear deal, or JCPOA. The emissaries to sworn enemy of the US.
the talks have not been in the Austrian capital The IRGC back US foes including Hezbollah
since March 11. in Lebanon, the Yemeni Houthi rebels and some
However, a draft compromise to reinstate the Iraqi militias.
JCPOA is still on the table, with the most difficult “And that [response to a compromise] is the
issues already resolved, diplomats have briefed political cost that I think the president is reluc-
media. tant to pay,” concluded Vaez, adding that a failure
Tehran contends that the IRGC designa- to reach a deal to bring back the JCPOA would
tion was only made by Trump to add pressure also result in a high political cost. “The Repub-
on Iran after the US exit from the JCPOA. The licans [in that case] are bound to accuse him of
Americans argue it was in no way related to the allowing Iran to become a virtual nuclear weap-
nuclear issue. “If Iran wants sanctions lifting that ons state under his watch now,” he added.
Week 16 20•April•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P9