New Report Shows Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Profiting from Iran Deal, Counter Jihad, October 5, 2016
A new report from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies showcases the ways in which Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has benefited from the so-called nuclear deal. This deal, which Congress never voted to approve nor reject, and which the Iranian government fundamentally altered rather than accepting, has nevertheless led to a vast transfer of wealth to Iran. Much of that wealth has fallen right in the hands of the IRGC, which oversees Iran’s terrorist and military nuclear programs.
Here at CounterJihad, we have covered the problems withIran’s nuclear deal somewhat extensively. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies report’s conclusions will thus be of little surprise to our regular readers. However, it does include additional detail on the degree to which Iran’s corporate and business ventures are secretly dominated by IRGC elites. As the report says:
[IRGC abuses] did not stop France’s mobile phone giant, Orange, from beginning talks with Iran’s largest mobile phone operator, Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran (MCI), over acquiring a stake in the Iranian company. The IRGC controls MCI through a 50-percent-plus-one stake in its parent company, the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI). In short, whether its internal security, foreign adventures, or large corporate ventures, the IRGC plays an outsized role in Iran’s internal power structure. Established in 1979 to consolidate the Islamic revolution and fight its enemies, the IRGC has evolved over the years into a full-fledged conventional army, conducting and directing terrorist activity abroad. The Guard has also become a political power broker, an economic conglomerate, and an agency in charge of nuclear and ballistic-missile proliferation…. IRGC revenues from economic activities yield the necessary resources and political leverage to place its members in positions of power. Conversely, the Guard’s political power serves the economic enterprises it owns, and both its political and economic weight in turn advance its military projects.
The IRGC’s corporate activity offers revenue to the organization in the same way that its control of narcotics within Iran does. However, whereas the narcotics are often passed on to Hezbollah to be turned into heroin, corporate profits can be rolled over into apparently legitimate enterprises that have useful military applications. That allows Iran a backdoor to internationally-developed advanced weaponry and so-called “dual use” technologies. These are technologies that have both a legitimate purpose, but also an application to Iran’s nuclear program.
Their space program is an excellent example of the way in which a legitimate purpose can mask development of nuclear weapons: the same technologies involved in building space rockets that can deploy satellites in particular orbits can also be used to develop ballistic missiles that will deliver nuclear warheads to particular cities. The New York Times reported in September that the biggest engine in North Korea’s nuclear missile program seems to have been developed in partnership with Iran. Iran’s version is “nuclear-capable,” but the North Korean version makes no pretense about its intentions.
The potential links to Iran complicate the issue. Iran has ignored a United Nations Security Council resolution, passed in conjunction with last year’s agreement freezing its nuclear program, to refrain from tests of nuclear-capable missiles for eight years. The Obama administration has not sought sanctions, knowing they would be vetoed by Russia and China, nor has it said much in public about the details of the cooperation on the new rocket engine.
Nor are they likely to do so, given how much of the administration’s prestige is tied up with the so-called nuclear deal. It is worth noting, however, that the effect of the deal has been to embolden Iran — and North Korea, and Russia, and America’s enemies in general.
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments