British foreign secretary James Cleverly pictured in September 2022
James Cleverly, British foreign secretary, has again claimed that the United Kingdom has sanctioned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps “in its entirety.”
In a tweet Friday, Cleverly highlighted UK sanctions on 47 Iranians, including Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders, since the September 16 death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after arrest by Tehran ‘morality police,’ and Iran’s removal from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The UK would “continue to sanction the IRGC in its entirety,” Cleverly added.
The British foreign office tweeted December 27 a clip of Cleverly listing British sanctions against Iran including “the IRGC in its entirety.” Cleverly December 13 said in parliament: “We already sanction the IRGC in its entirety.”
Unconvinced by Cleverly’s assurances, opponents of a soft policy toward the Islamic Republic have demanded action. Kasra Aarabi, of the Tony Blair Institute, this week said the IRGC was “no different from the likes of Isis [Daesh, the Islamic State group] or al-Qaeda.”
When the United States in 2019 added the IRGC to its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ as part of its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions against Iran, it specifically cited the Corps “in its entirety.”
In Britain’s House of Lords October, Lord Palmer, vice-President of the Jewish Leadership Council, linked the IRGC to the “summer’s attempted murder of Sir Salman Rushdie, last year’s attempted kidnapping of…[activist] Masih Alinejad and numerous foiled plots…” The Rushdie case and the attempted kidnapping of Alinejad reported by US law enforcement, are both live legal cases with no link to the IRGC proven in court.