BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union appeared ready on Thursday to sanction Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards over Tehran’s deadly crackdown on protests across the country, further squeezing the Islamic republic as it fears a possible military strike by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The United States has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and several guided-missile destroyers to the Middle East, where they can be used to launch attacks from the sea. Iran has also continued to issue threats of its own, saying it could launch preemptive strikes or target the Middle East broadly, including U.S. military bases and Israel.
It’s unclear how Trump will decide to use force, even though he has threatened to use force in response to killings of peaceful demonstrators and possible mass executions. Activists say at least 6,373 people have been killed in the protests.
But the European move, long considered, would put new pressure on Iran as its economy already struggles under the weight of international sanctions. Its currency, the rial, fell to a record low of 1.6 million to the dollar on Thursday. Economic woes sparked protests that expanded to challenge the theocracy before a crackdown.
EU ‘likely’ to sanction Guards
The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Callas told reporters it was “very likely” that sanctions would be imposed.
“This would put them on the same level as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic State,” Karas said, using the Arabic abbreviation for the Islamic State group. “If you act like a terrorist, you should be treated like a terrorist.”
Iran had no immediate comment but has been criticizing Europe in recent days as it considers the move, which follows earlier U.S. sanctions on the Guard.
Under EU law, sanctions require the unanimous consent of the 27 EU countries. This has at times hindered Brussels’ ability to use its economic clout to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With regard to Iran, France opposes designating the Guard as a terrorist organization due to concerns that it would endanger French citizens detained in Iran as well as the diplomatic mission, one of the few channels of communication between the Islamic Republic and Europe and its allies. However, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said on Wednesday that Paris supported the decision.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrow told the Brussels Foreign Affairs Council on Thursday that France supports more sanctions and listing Iran “because the crimes committed cannot be committed with impunity.”
“In Iran, the intolerable repression that is sweeping the peaceful resistance of the Iranian people cannot go unanswered,” he said.
Keep the focus of attack
The Guard was born out of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force designed to protect the government overseen by Shia clerics and was later written into its constitution. Operating in parallel with the country’s regular armed forces, it grew in prominence and power during a long and devastating war with Iraq in the 1980s. Although the company faced possible dissolution after the war, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei empowered it to expand into private enterprise, allowing it to thrive.
The Guard’s all-volunteer Basij unit could be key to suppressing the demonstrations, which have seen authorities cut off the global internet in the country of 85 million people starting on January 8. Videos coming out of Iran via Starlink satellite dishes and other means show men from the Iranian military possibly shooting and beating protesters.
Sanctioning the Guard would be complicated, however. Iranian men are required to serve in the military for up to two years once they turn 18, and many find themselves drafted regardless of their political leanings.
Death toll slowly rising
On Wednesday, the American Human Rights Activists news agency, which has accurately reported on multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said at least 6,373 people had been killed in the violence and many more were feared dead. The count includes at least 5,993 protesters, 214 government-affiliated troops, 113 children and 53 civilians who did not participate in the demonstrations. More than 42,450 people have been arrested, the report added.
The group verifies each death and arrest with a network of local activists in Iran. The Associated Press was unable to independently assess the death toll given that authorities had cut off the internet and interrupted calls to the Islamic Republic. Communications blackouts have also slowed the full exposure of the crackdown.
As of January 21, the Iranian government put a much lower death toll at 3,117, saying 2,427 of them were civilians and security forces, and calling the remainder “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocratic regime has underestimated or failed to report the death toll from unrest.
The death toll exceeds that of any other round of protests or riots in Iran in decades, recalling the chaos surrounding the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
