Council on Foreign Relations – The European Union (EU) announced new sanctions on Iran and designated its paramilitary guard a terrorist organization, the latest global pushback to Tehran’s crackdown on anti-regime protesters.More than six thousand people are confirmed to have been killed in countrywide demonstrations since the end of December, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said this week. Estimates from the Iranian government are lower, at about three thousand deaths. After initially threatening military action earlier this month over the crackdown, U.S. President Donald Trump later expanded those threats and tied them to demands for a deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
The EU’s moves. The EU sanctioned fifteen senior officials and six organizations in Iran for actions like surveilling and censoring online protest content. Meanwhile, the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group puts its officials under travel controls and other punitive actions and aligns Brussels with others who have done the same, including the United States and Canada. The head of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iran called the move a “long-overdue political signal that massive violence and transnational repression will no longer go unanswered,” while Iran’s top diplomat said it was a “strategic mistake.”
The threat of conflict. Though the United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, Trump told reporters yesterday he had been speaking to Tehran in recent days and that “it would be great” if military action could be avoided. Countries including Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have pressed for mediation, with Turkey hosting Iran’s foreign minister today. Amid the threats of military escalation, several airlines canceled flights in the Middle East this week.
“What makes [the latest] protests in Iran different from recent uprisings is the combination of an economic crisis at home, disillusionment with the foreign policy choices made by the leadership, mismanagement of the country, and the growing aspirations of its people.”