Iranian unit a purveyor of terror

The Albanese government will add to perceptions that it is weak and irresolute in backing Israel if it fails to list Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation. The anti-Semitic elite unit is the ayatollahs’ spearhead in efforts to annihilate the Jewish state. The government of Canada’s Justin Trudeau, our Five Eyes partner, with which Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong say they work, acted in June, proclaiming the IRGC a significant tool in global terror.

After refusing to expel Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, after he lauded assassinated Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “blessed martyr”, the government should not ignore calls made in the Senate to act against the IRGC. For 45 years it has been the principal vehicle of Tehran’s theocratic regime to oppress Iranians and plot the destruction of Israel. It leads and controls Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and is the mainstay of Iran’s campaign of terror, directly and through its Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi proxies. It has overseen Hezbollah’s stockpile of about 150,000 missiles, backed by a fighting army larger than that of host nation Lebanon. The IRGC also controls vast industrial enterprises that bring it more than $US20bn ($29.6bn) a year.

The Prime Minister and Senator Wong should align Australia with our Canadian and US allies on the issue. Previous government hesitancy, linked to assertions that as a state entity the IRGC was not covered by our Criminal Code, had no merit or credibility. Labor’s most senior Jewish MP, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, should understand that better than most.