Iran Blacklists 24 US Officials Over Terrorism Charges & ‘Gross Violations of Human Rights’

Tehran’s sanctions on US officials involved in both the Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign and the assassination of Gen. Soleimani signals the chances of nuclear deal restoration are looking more remote.

Iran moved Saturday to sanction another 24 American officials were “designated for their role in imposing and intensifying the imposition of the US’ unilateral coercive measures against the Iranian government and the people,” according to Iranian public broadcaster Press TV.

Nearly 100 US citizens have been sanctioned by the Islamic Republic since the US government withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal, imposed a brutal sanctions regime on Tehran, and assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry says the new group, which includes former US Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey Jr, former US Central Command chief Joseph Votel, and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, was blacklisted from the Islamic Republic for “involvement in terrorist acts, glorification and supporting terrorism and gross violations of human rights.”

The terrorist activities referenced are almost certainly an allusion to high-ranking former US officials’ alleged involvement in the illegal drone-based assassination of Soleimani, who was widely credited with the destruction of Daesh*.

Other Americans facing Iranian sanctions for alleged gross violations of human rights were involved in crafting the so-called “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign that’s devastated the Iranian economy and which former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted in 2019 was designed to encourage the Iranian people to “change the government.” The New York Times wrote at the time that the admission “appeared to be an endorsement of regime change.”

Pompeo himself was previously subjected to Iranian sanctions in January of 2021 which also included a ban on travel to the country and a freeze of any potential assets in Iran. While few of the figures who’ve been placed on the country’s blacklist are likely to keep serious investments there, if a recent AP report is to be believed, lingering Iranian outrage over the extra-judicial murder of General Soleimani could still be having an impact; the US State Department insists it’s forking out over $2 million a month to protect Pompeo and former US Special Envoy to Iran Brian Hook from what it claims are “serious and credible” threats of retaliation from Iran.

Western media is largely portraying the move by Iran as “symbolic,” but the timing is important.

Negotiations aimed at restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal–which the US effectively shredded with its unilateral Trump-era departure–have stalled in recent weeks as US President Joe Biden’s refusal to remove sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) imperils the possibility of a d’etante. But that’s long been a red line for Iranians, with former Foreign Minister Sayyid Kamal Kharrazi explaining at the Doha Forum in late March, “a national army cannot be listed as a terrorist group.”

It seems that when EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell claimed the day before that a restoration of the JCPOA was “closer than ever,” his US counterparts didn’t quite get the memo. On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again accused the IRGC of being a “terrorist organization” and said he wasn’t “overly optimistic” that a restoration of the deal was possible.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia and many other states