The American website The Intercept, in a report published on Monday, May 16, 2022, stated that the documents obtained from the hacked e-mail of a diplomat from Washington indicate an active operation in the United States in favor of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in the past. . Five years to target the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The documents show the efforts of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to expand their influence over the past five years, aimed at confusing Washington with messages in support of continuing the confrontation with Iran and targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with sanctions in addition to listing it. terrorism
Since at least 2015, a collection of communications consultants, law firms, and lobbyists working with foreign governments — particularly Iran’s main enemies in the region: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain — has been a steady stream of tweets, conversations, and press releases. Have launched. And warns of the dangers of the IRGC and support for foreign terrorist organizations.
For her part, Sarah Lee Whitson, Democracy Executive Director for the Arab World, said: Watch the program: The UAE and Saudi Arabia – which are responsible for the most heinous forms of terrorism against civilians in Yemen – are pushing to put the IRGC on the list of foreign terrorist organizations and keep it on the list.
“We should not allow foreign governments to use lobbies to buy influence over important national security policies, such as the government with which we want to reach a major nuclear deal as a terrorist organization,” added Sarah Lee Whitson. Introduce.”
The information in a previously unpublished hacked email sent by an Emirati diplomat shows a foreign stakeholder trying to influence the US government’s approach to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The UAE ambassador to Washington, Youssef al-Otaiba, a powerful foreign diplomat in Washington, wrote in an email he received with others by a group calling itself the Global Leaks, a reporter adding the group to its list of foreign terrorists.
An email leaked by Global Leaks shows Wall Street Journal correspondent Jay Solomon writing to Utayba on February 3, 2017: “Have you heard anything about government thinking? [ترامب] To introduce the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization?
“I do not know where they stand on their decision, but I made the offer to a few people,” Otaiba replied within minutes.
For its part, the UAE embassy did not respond to a request for comment on the alleged letters, but Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept could not confirm their authenticity. Al-Atiba also did not specify the identities of the people to whom the offer was made.
Simultaneously with Atiba and Suleiman’s messages, an army of mercenaries working for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Iranian opposition Mojahedin Movement sent messages to congressional staff, the State Department, and think tanks. Danger of the IRGC
The media hype surrounding the IRGC from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain continued with the Trump administration imposing sanctions on the IRGC in 2017, a move that was welcomed by foreign agents in Washington.
The UAE celebrated the new Trump administration’s progressive policy toward Iran and announced its support through a press release issued by Hajar Al-Awad & Partners, a law firm that works with the UAE embassy. To move
The fruitful campaign to expand foreign influence continued even after Trump’s presidency, during which he exerted maximum pressure on Iran.
Following the removal of the Houthi group from the list of foreign terrorist organizations by the Biden government in February 2022, Emirati agents released a report related to the UAE Embassy in Washington on “returning the Houthis to the US terrorist lists.” Relations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
In turn, the pace of activity announced by the Foreign Agency Registration Act for clients in the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, as well as the MEK political branch, slowed, while the Biden government pushed for action. Return to the nuclear deal This change coincided with rising tensions between the White House and the Gulf states over a range of issues, from increased oil production for OPEC members to sanctions against Russia following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While at least one organization with financial ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE – although not listed as a foreign agent – continues to lobby against the possibility of removing the IRGC from the terrorism list. The Middle East Institute (MEI), an think tank “dedicated solely to the study of Middle East affairs and receiving the most funding from the UAE Embassy in Washington as well as Saudi Aramco,” published a report in May 2022.
“While the US government is evaluating whether or not to remove the Revolutionary Guards from the list of foreign terrorist organizations, the nature of the Revolutionary Guards indicates that it is not a traditional government armed force,” the report said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is an ideological organization that shares its key characteristics with other Islamic organizations on the list, including its pursuit of a expansionist Islamic state, Islamic world order, and the imposition of Sharia law (according to the Shiite view) on Force, the military concept of jihad, and anti-Semitic and anti-American ideology.
Rachel Dooley, MEI’s director of media relations, said the donations did not affect the group’s work. “MEI maintains complete intellectual independence for itself and its researchers, and no investment has any effect on the editorial line, nor has any capitalist been consulted in writing or publishing any of the articles, including this one,” he explained. This article has been submitted independently to the Middle East Institute, which publishes a variety of views and opinions on regional politics and affairs. is not.
MEI discloses the identities of its donors on its website, but does not disclose potential conflicts of interest in the organization’s content to its foreign government financiers.
So far, the pressure campaign against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Washington seems to have worked. The United States has rejected removing the group from the terrorist list without further concessions than Iran. While the Iranians say such a position is contrary to the agreement reached in 2015, because to get economic facilities from Iran requires more concessions that the country has already bargained to achieve.
However, the direct discussion about the possibility of removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from the terrorist list is a threat to the great achievement of the “maximum pressure” campaign, which has been praised by the Gulf states and the Mojahedin Khalq Movement. And if an agreement to remove the group suddenly seems possible, officials in the Washington-based countries will certainly step up their campaign.
Source: Lebanon Debate
