As Senate Prepares To Weigh Biden’s Bid for Iran Deal, Israel Mooted as Being Behind Assassination of Revolutionary Guards Officer

Even with a Revolutionary Guards bigwig being killed, apparently by Israeli agents, at the heart of Tehran, President Biden is maneuvering to revive a diplomatic deal with Iran — which would likely entail rewarding the Revolutionary Guards. That’s an irony that could come up when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convenes Wednesday for a hearing on the administration’s Iran policies. Mr. Biden’s point man on Iran, Robert Malley, could also face questions about the logic, or lack thereof, of removing sanctions against Iran’s central bank. The Biden administration is reportedly ready to end sanctions that ban dealing with Iran’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve. In exchange, the Iranians would drop their demand to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Meanwhile, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodayari of the IRGC’s Quds Force was gunned down Sunday at the heart of the Iranian capital. In an operation that seemed lifted from the Israeli fictional series “Tehran” — the second season of which is now being broadcast on Apple TV — Khodayari died after two motorcycle riders shot him with five bullets. Television and newspaper reports in Israel detailed the operation near Khodayari’s home on Teheran’s Mahadi al-Islam Street. As the officer’s car got stuck in rush hour traffic, the cyclists approached and shot him with guns equipped with silencers. Then the riders quickly disappeared. The Israeli press is reporting that the colonel, a close associate of an IRGC commander who was slain in 2020 by an American drone strike, Qasem Soleimani, was a high commander in the Guards’ hierarchy.Described by sources as a “ticking bomb,” Israel’s Channel 12 reported that when Khodayari was killed he was plotting to assassinate Israelis in Cyprus, Turkey, and Colombia. He was also involved in erecting defenses for Iranian and Hezbollah positions in Syria, which Israel continuously attacks from the air. Separately, Channel 12 in Israel broadcast an audio recording of an IRGC agent, Mansour Rasouli, as he was reportedly interrogated by Mossad agents at his home in Tehran recently. In the recording Mr. Rasouli admits to collecting information on three assassination targets — a diplomat in the Israeli embassy in Turkey, an American general in Germany, and a French journalist. In the Persian-language recording Mr. Rasouli is heard swearing “on my mother’s life” that he would end pursuing the assasination plot. Channel 12 reported he admitted to the Israeli agents that he was promised $150,000 for preparing the assassinations, and an additional $1 million if he killed the three unnamed targets. Israel seems to be signaling to anyone who would listen that regardless of any diplomacy with Iran, it would continue to operate there. “We are the only country Iran is threatening with annihilation,” the Israeli ambassador at the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said today. “We have the right to protect our nation.” Speaking to a conference in Jerusalem today, Mr. Erdan made clear that Israel would not be bound by any agreement America and its allies reach with Iran. The Biden administration, however, plows on. A blogger for the Carnegie Middle East Center, Michael Young, quoted yesterday a report from a Lebanese website, ASAS, saying that Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, is now mediating to end the impasse in negotiations to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. According to the report, Washington and Tehran have agreed to Mr. al Thani’s suggestion that Iran would give up its demand for delisting the IRGC, and in return America would lift oil and gas sanctions and remove restrictions that ban dealings with Iran’s central bank. Such an American “concession,” however, has already been made by the Biden administration, a Trump-era White House adviser on Iran, Richard Goldberg, says. “We already agreed to that,” he tells the Sun, adding, “I don’t discount that this is a ruse from the Iranians. They have the incentive to keep negotiations going forever.”That’s because negotiations give them time and cover to advance their nuclear capabilities. The White House, however, is yet to propose an alternative to diplomacy, Mr. Goldberg adds: “If you don’t see a plan B from the Americans there is no plan B, which means awaiting the Iranians.” At the same time, the weekend’s Israeli media reports on Israel’s activities in Tehran are not accidental either, Mr. Goldberg, who serves as senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, says. The Israelis are “signaling to Tehran that they’re that deep in.”The FDD’s chief executive, Mark Dubowitz, will brief the Senate at the Wednesday hearing. The session, convened by a JCPOA skeptic, Senator Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to be contentious, as Mr. Malley will make a rare videotaped appearance.A bipartisan group of senators has warned Mr. Biden against making any agreement that would remove the IRGC from the terror list, which automatically bans funding of any listed group.Congress, though, might well resist the administration’s attempt to end sanctions imposed on Iran’s central bank. That means the central bank could transfer funds to the IRGC. If banking sanctions end, the Guards would have free access to funds — defeating the purpose of listing the group as a terrorist organization in the first place.

As Senate Prepares To Weigh Biden’s Bid for Iran Deal, Israel Mooted as Being Behind Assassination of Revolutionary Guards Officer

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