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1. Paramilitary Brigades: 31 “Corps” distributed throughout the country and who get first call on conscripts and new military equipment.
2. The Basij Militia: A paramilitary police force of 90,000 that are the ideological police of the Iranian Revolution.
3. The Qods Force: The terrorist element, and described exactly as such by many observers.
4. The Ansar ol Mahdi Force: The hard core of the IRGC, they are the bodyguard force for the senior members of the government and for the nuclear program and the rocket force (which they control).
In addition, the IRGC is linked to terrorist activities around the world and supports terrorist organizations. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the paramilitary troops of the Iranian regime. Like the KGB of the Soviet Union or the SS of Nazi Germany, the IRGC are both the agents of order for a harsh ideological regime and its agents of oppression. On the face of things, they are a national police force and a security agency for the government of a nation-state. However, that nation state is a regime that was created and is sustained through coercion and violence, and the IRGC are the agents of that coercion.
When it suits the Iranian regime, the IRGC is a part of the legitimate government of Iran. However, when it suits the Iranian government, they can also pretend that the IRGC does not represent an official part of the government. This provides the Iranian government with plausible deniability for its terrorist operations.
The IRGC pretends that it is not an agent of the Iranian authorities when it is training terrorists in Lebanon and Yemen, or sending paramilitary forces to shore up Syria, fighting alongside Hezbollah, or protecting dope smuggling operations in Latin America.
Its Qods Force has worked with many terrorist groups including al Qaeda (AQ), delivered terrorist attacks of its own, and has murdered dissidents and exiles on behalf of Iran. Some of the significant terrorist activities of the IRGC include the 1983 United States Embassy and the French bombing in Beirut, the 1988 Kuwait Airlines hijacking, the 1992 Israel Embassy attack in Buenos Aires, and the explosion of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. In addition, the IRGC played an important role during the 2006 Lebanon War and was responsible for firing missiles at Israeli naval vessels. The IRGC also assists Hezbollah in firing rockets into Israel across the Syrian border.
There are many reasons to put the IRGC on a nation’s terrorist list. Below are several reasons.
1. The Canadian government has evidence that Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, was raped and tortured before her 2003 beating death in a Tehran prison. Iran has always refused to release her corpse so that we could do an autopsy. A retired U.S. FBI agent is also missing, probably a victim of an IRGC kidnapping. The IRGC runs Iran’s prisons.
2. Iran supplied weapons and explosives to the Taliban in southwestern Afghanistan, apparently since 2003. I was personally aware of this activity when I worked for the U.S. Army. The Afghan government says Iran supplied 10.9 tons of small arms and ammunition to the Taliban in 2009 and the British intercepted a big shipment in June 2011. The Iranians supplied material has killed NATO soldiers. Arms transfers to guerrillas are one of the responsibilities of the IRGC.
3. Hezbollah has always maintained a close relationship with Iran through the IRGC – which trained and armed the group. Hezbollah has used Canada as a base for fundraising and for seeking specialized equipment. Hezbollah’s actions directly contributed to the death of a Canadian soldier with the UN in South Lebanon in 2006.
4. in February 2012 and again in July 2012, the Ayatollah Khamenei specifically threatened Israel and the United States with nuclear weapons, and one of his aides issued a Fatwa calling not just for the complete destruction of Israel, but of all Jews everywhere they can be found. This is a direct threat to Israel its citizens as well as Israel’s friends and allies.
5. Iran’s nuclear program and its ballistic missile program are under IRGC control. Iran has made enough noise about having nuclear weapons for any sober observer to conclude that once they have a working bomb, they will use it. This is a direct threat to Israel, the U.S. and its allies as well their citizens living and working abroad.
6. While the records of our naval operations tend to remain highly classified, we have had naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea often enough in the years since the Cold War ended. While the personnel who monitor such things in our Navy tend to be closed-mouth about their experiences, it seems some of them know what an Iranian Kilo class submarine sounds like, and what radar frequencies are associated with Iran’s Silkworm anti-ship missiles. We also refitted our 20mm Phalanx CIWS guns with the capacity to hit small fast-moving targets, like the Boghammar speed boats the IRGC naval force uses. In short, it seems reasonable to assume that our Navy has already been sparring – so far without shots being fired – against the IRGC’s naval forces.
7. On November 28th, 2011, US District Court Judge, John D. Bates, handed down a ruling that showed Iran had been responsible for providing material support to AQ for the 1998 East African Embassy bombings. Moreover, Judge Bates’ decision pointed out that Iran had agreed to provide training at Hezbollah camps for AQ as early as 1992. Iran operated through the IRGC. AQ attacks have killed Canadian citizens and done massive economic harm to Canada, which is why it is listed as a terrorist entity.
8. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iran has done its utmost to keep Iraq unstable by pumping in arms and support for both radical Sunni groups like AQ (despite their frequent bloody attacks on Iraqi Shiites) and for radical Shiites like Muqtada al Sadr’s militia. Again, the Qods force of the IRGC has been implicated in much of this activity.
9. Using the Qods force and IRGC, Iran has stirred up the Shite Houthi tribesmen in Yemen and got them to stage attacks into Saudi Arabia in 2010 and 2011.
10. Members of the IRGC have been used to assassinate many Iranian exiles and dissidents since 1979 in many countries and recently were arrested in the United States for a planned assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
Although the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps play a key role in protection of the Islamic Republic of Iran and suppression of the Iranian citizens, it also extends the existence of a government that has taken the lives of many innocent individuals through its terrorist activities and brutal actions. Therefore, as the agents of ideological oppression, of state terror, and the sponsors of terrorism outside of Iran; the IRGC certainly deserves to be added to the Canadian list of entities to which our anti-terrorism laws apply. Declaring the IRGC to be a terrorist group will allow Canadian officials to employ many more options in countering their activities inside our country, and will send another stern message to their masters in Tehran.
Iran's leaders have learned well from the mistakes of Iraq and Syria. Rather than having a single facility that can be taken out by one surgical attack, they have scattered different parts of their nuclear program around the country. But even that precaution is not enough, and they are moving more and more of the critical elements of the process, especially uranium enrichment, into heavily-fortified underground facilities.
• The Enterprise Institute, an American think tank, that Iran would be able to manufacture a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb by August 2012
• Israel’s deputy prime minister Moshe Yaalon disclosed that the big blast at the Iranian missile base near Tehran last November blew up a new missile system with a range of 10,000 kilometers. These missiles are capable of targeting the United States.
• There have been 4 rounds of sanctions against Iran passed by the United Nations. Each round in itself is severely underwhelming. Beginning in December 2006, the Security Council banned the sale of nuclear related materials and froze the assets of some regime officials. In March 2007, the UN expanded the asset freeze and slapped an arms embargo on Iran. In March of 2008, the asset freeze was extended again, and member states were authorized to monitor ships and planes headed for Iran as well as individuals involved in the nuclear program.
• The international sanctions passed in June of 2010, froze the funds of individuals and businesses connected to the IRGC and went after the financial sector of the Iranian economy.
• In addition to international sanctions, about a dozen individual states — including the US, the EU, Japan, and Australia — have added their own national sanctions on everything from penalizing companies that do business with Iran to preventing the sale of oil and gas equipment to replace Tehran’s aging oil infrastructure.
• The U.S. military has publicly confirmed that there is an elite special forces team operating in the Persian Gulf region to deal with the threats posed by Iran. According to a spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command (USOC), this is a team of "highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments" and are specifically tasked with confronting "irregular threats. Members of this group, known as the Joint Special Operating Task Force Gulf Co-operating Countries are training military units in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil nations threatened by Iran.
• The economy of Iran is increasingly unstable. The central bank has raised the interest rate to 21%
• The government is not popular with the people, some Iranians believe the last election was stolen by Ahmadinejad. There are deep divisions within the government between different factions. The Old Testament tells us that God often divided Israel's enemies,
• the IRGC & Basij have stepped up executions of Iranians who oppose the regime
• Khamenei says that the coming of the Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam or Mahdi, is near, the Mahdi, according to Shiite belief, will reappear at the time of great chaos
• Iran produces 4 million bbl of oil a day
• A true embargo against Iranian oil will shock oil prices — a shock that the fragile economic recoveries in the West are not prepared to manage
• Iran used to import about a third of its refined gasoline, that has changed over the last 3 years, as rationing and a slowing economy have closed the gap between what Iran can refine in country and what it must get from outside sources.
• Hezbollah/Iranian plots foiled in Thailand, Cyprus & Azerbaijan, with a successful bombing in Bulgaria
• EU froze the assets of Iran's Central Bank
• Middle Eastern & Persian instability works in Russia’s favor
• About 80 percent of Iran's oil revenue comes from exports the heart of the embargoes and will hit the Iranian hard at its economy
• Iranian crude is being made the last choice for oil on the int’l market
• China counts on Iran as its third-biggest oil supplier and has rejected sanctions against Iran
• South Korea, which relies on Iran for up to 10 percent of its oil supplies, has been noncommittal on sanctions
• Japan, which imports about 9 percent of its oil from Iran most expressed concern about how the sanctions would affect Japanese banks.
• India will buy Iranian oil with gold
• Iran is staggering from widespread unemployment and inflation
• Iranian lawmakers have stepped up threats to block the Persian Gulf's oil tanker traffic
• The U.S. added new sanctions on Bank Tejerat, Iran's third-largest bank.
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