by Marilyn Stern
February 5, 2024
We should not fear targeting IRGC sites within Iran, homes of Iranian officials, or even its nuclear sites because "we are living in [a] very crucial moment."
Vahid Beheshti, an Iranian-born journalist, dissident, and human rights activist focused on Iran's human rights violations, spoke to a February 5 Middle East Forum Podcast (MEF) (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Beheshti has camped out in front of the United Kingdom's (UK) Foreign Office in London for more than a year to pressure politicians to designate the Iranian regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and held a seventy-two-day hunger strike to advance this objective. Following Hamas's October 7 invasion and rampage, Beheshti, who had displayed an Israeli flag in solidarity with "the only democracy in the Middle East," was chased and attacked by Hamas supporters. The police intervened to stop the mob, apprehending a knife-wielding attacker who had threatened to behead Beheshti.
Recently, MEF sponsored Beheshti at a Knesset event, where he became the first Iranian to formally address members of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament. In his address, he stressed the "common interests" shared by the "18 million Iranians on the ground who are thirsty for freedom and democracy" and the Israeli people. Both are threatened by the Iranian regime, "a common enemy," but the brutal barbarism exhibited by Hamas on October 7 as one of the regime's proxies exposed the Islamic Republic of Iran as the "root of the problem."
Hamas's attack, "designed in Tehran," was unleashed to scuttle the normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia and to distract attention from the war against Ukraine by Iran's ally, Russia. Within Iran, the regime is trying to quell domestic unrest over the recent murder of sixteen-year-old Armita Geravand by the cleric's morality police. The teen's death is reminiscent of Jina "Mahsa" Amini, the Kurdish-Iranian twenty-two-year-old woman murdered in 2022 for violating Iran's mandatory headscarf law. Iranian women protesting Amini's murder have been targeted by the police, but in October 2023, nearly one year since Amini's death, Geravand was murdered by Tehran's hijab police, purportedly for the same offense.
Iran's malevolent influence has taken root among Western youths "brainwashed" by anti-Israel activists to support the regime's terror proxies attacking the Jewish state. One need not look far beyond Israel's borders to see the chaos and destruction being waged against the West by Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. In the U.K. and across Europe, Islamic centers and "so-called charities" have harnessed support from much of the next generation, turning followers into "sleeper cells." "And we have all witnessed what they have done with these sleeping cells in the past three months in the streets of London and other cities."
From the time it took power in 1979, the regime has spent billions of dollars to eliminate the state of Israel, expanding its network of anti-Israel and anti-Western proxies. As the foremost state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, the regime is also an "existential threat" to the U.S. and Europe. "Just imagine this evil regime gaining access to [a] nuclear weapon" to usher in the caliphate.
The long-overdue solution is to act and overthrow the regime, particularly because now it is in its "weakest position." In 2009, the Iranian people tried to topple the mullahs, only to be brutally crushed by the ayatollah's forces. But currently the regime has miscalculated by underestimating the reaction of the Israeli government and its people to Hamas's October 7 massacre. Given this error, the Iranian regime now can neither enter the war fully, because it lacks the military capacity to prevail should it do so, but neither can it be seen to entirely abandon its Hamas client. Such an error of judgment has caused Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, to "[lose] trust" in the regime's urgings. The terror group sees how Hamas is being decimated and does not want to risk a similar outcome.
The Iranian regime is a "paper tiger," and its weak point is the IRGC. If "unknown drones" target the residences of "Hossein Salami, the head of the IRGC, or the house of Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the top commander" of the IRGC's aerospace division "inside Iran," it would galvanize the Iranian people to act. They would know that the West is united with them. "If you give them a little bit of support, they will finish the job for us."
Israel effectively targeted Razi Mousavi, the IRGC's top commander. The regime tried to camouflage Mousavi's position by publicizing Ismail Ghaani as IRGC commander, but Israeli intelligence knew Mousavi was the true decision-maker, and his assassination was akin to that of the head Quds force commander, Qassem Soleimani. In Syria, five more IRGC Quds force commanders were neutralized.
There is no faith that failed international institutions like the U.N., or the Red Cross, will act. Western leaders and politicians need to be lobbied and persuaded to stop ignoring the "elephant in the room." Although regime lobbyists who are active in the U.S. have convinced American politicians that it would be "dangerous" to confront Iran, we should not fear targeting IRGC sites within Iran, homes of Iranian officials, or even its nuclear sites because "we are living in [a] very crucial moment."
After addressing the Knesset members, a five-meter-long banner was prominently displayed in the heart of Tehran proclaiming in Farsi and in English: "Vahid Beheshti is the voice of all Iranians, and we stand by Israel." Within Iran, various groups with differing political views and religious backgrounds are united in support of Beheshti's mission. "We need to support [the] Iranian people to do the job for us in Iran."
Beheshti is continuing his campaign in London, urging British members of parliament (MPs) to designate the IRGC as a terror group. Support for proscribing the IRGC has increased from 125 MPs to 300. A recent letter sent by these MPs to U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated Beheshti's demand. He is convinced that "this is our time, and we can defeat this evil regime together."
Marilyn Stern is communications coordinator at the Middle East Forum.
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