According to Alex Grinberg, an Israeli expert on Iran who spoke this week in London, designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would complicate their operations, but would not be enough to dismantle the entire ecosystem.
Does a militarily weakened Iran reduce the regime’s overseas terrorist and other influence activities ?
Not at allo, on the contrary, according to Alex Grinberg an Israeli expert on Iran who briefed journalists in London earlier this week on the topic of ‘’Iran’s shadow war in the U.K.what’s next?’’.
The brifing, organized by Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA) in partnership with CAMERA UK, examined how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operates beyond Iran’s borders as the U.K has not yet proscribe it as a terrorist organization despite long overdues pledges by the British government it would do so in the wake of attacks against Jewish communities and Israeli targets in the country. The EU put IRGC on its terror list last February.
The IRGC was set up after the 1979 Islamic revolution to defend Iran’s Islamic system and has become a major military, political and economic force in the country.
It is estimated to have tens of thousands of active personnel and has consistently been accused by Western nations of sponsoring terrorism abroad.
An Islamist group suspected of having Iranian links – Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia – claimed responsibility for a recent attack on Jewish community in north London, along with other attacks in Europe.
‘’If Iran is weakened and it is weakened, this doesn’t mean that the Iranian regime has no energy, will, and power to carry out foreign terrorist attacks. There’s no connection between the two. The regime becomes even more dangerous abroad,’’ said Grinberg, a former intelligence officer who is currently expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Startegy and Security (JISS).
‘’In the U.K. there are five threat vectors. physical, of course it’s traditional Iranian modus operandi, assassinations, kidnappings, and intimidation of dissonant journalists or Jewish community members.’’
Grinberg insisted that Iran’s military structure has always been weak in conventional terms.’’Tehran’s strength has never lain in tanks, aviation, or conventional deployment capabilities, but rather in its network of missiles, proxies, and asymmetric warfare.’’
According to Grinberg, designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would complicate their operations, but would not be enough to dismantle the entire ecosystem.
He called on European democracies to think more like intelligence agencies than like courts, ‘’otherwise, Iran will continue to exploit the lack of direct judicial evidence of the attacks.’’
He believes that the true objective of the war was never to bring about the collapse of the Ayatollahs’ regime, but rather’’ to drastically reduce its capacity to become an existential threat to Israel and to regional stability.’’
HE argued that the regime also faces an internal crisis of legitimacy exacerbated by repression and economic deterioration, downplaying warnings about a rapid Iranian recovery. “Of course, they can say tomorrow that they’re going to rebuild everything. The issue isn’t declaring it; the issue is how to do it,” he said.