Supporting Iran’s Quest for Democracy and the Urgency of Europe Proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
What is the best way to support the Iranian people’s quest for democracy in Iran?
The clerical regime’s oppression and massive human rights violations, including executions and torture of political opponents and minorities in Iran; IRGC’s continued assassination attempts in Europe and the United States; and its leverage of nuclearization for regional subversion and hegemony have focused global concern on the need to stop the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.
The IRGC has emerged as the preeminent political and economic power inside Iran, while the Qods Force (its foreign arm) has sought to export the regime’s Islamist (Shi’a) revolutionary ideology throughout the region.
In command of Iran’s “guns and butter,” the IRGC has, over the past four decades, carried out terrorist attacks, hostage-taking, maritime piracy, political assassinations, human rights violations, campaigns to sustain Bashar Assad, and the crushing of domestic dissent across Iran.
The European Union has been called upon to urgently proscribe the IRGC. What is its likelihood? What are the pros and cons of proscribing the IRGC? And what is the best solution-centric approach to the democratic “day after” the current regime?
- The Hon. Gila Gamliel, Israeli Minister of Intelligence
- The Hon. Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, Former Italian Foreign Minister
- The Hon. John Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN
Also featuring:
- Mohsen Sazegara, Former Iranian Deputy Prime Minister
- Vahid Beheshti, Iranian opposition leader, UK
- Mehrdad Marty Youssefiani, President & CEO, Caspian Balestra Group, Inc.
- Dan Diker, President, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein, Senior Fellow, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, Senior Director, National Security and Middle East Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
- Dr. David Wurmser, Former Adviser on Middle East to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
- Lord Stuart Polak, CBE, UK
