Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members march during the annual anti-Israel Al Quds Day rally in Tehran, Iran, on April 29, 2022. (Photo by Sobhan Farajvan/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

To cut the flow of resources to terror organizations like Hamas, the United States should return to “maximum pressure” against the main sponsor of these groups: Iran.

Read Hudson Research Fellow Nate Sibley’s latest memo to learn what strategies Washington has at its disposal.

Key Insights

1. Target the China-Iran nexus. 

China, long the leading market for Iranian oil, has increased its imports in recent years. Chinese banks also give Iran’s besieged financial system a lifeline by facilitating oil payments and other transactions prohibited by Western sanctions. By aggressively targeting or threatening to target Chinese oil importers and banks with secondary sanctions, the US could deprive Tehran of its major revenue stream and potentially cause Beijing to reconsider whether its partnership with such a toxic regime is worth the blowback. The US can further raise the cost of sanctions evasion for both Tehran and Beijing by targeting the so-called ghost fleet of oil tankers that Iran relies upon to export its oil to China.

2. Destroy Tehran’s terrorist financing networks.

The United States can intensify efforts to dismantle the sprawling terrorist financing networks that sustain Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) proxies. Washington has an advanced anti–money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, developed and tested through two decades of the Global War on Terror. In addition to the unmatched resources available to US law enforcement, the US dollar’s status as the preeminent global currency gives it extraordinary jurisdictional reach. This means that US AML/CFT measures can often be brought to bear against bad actors operating far beyond US borders.

3. End financial relief for terrorists.

The Biden administration previously authorized the release to Iran of at least $2.7 billion in frozen oil payments from Iraq and $6 billion from South Korea. These funds are earmarked for only debt payments and humanitarian relief. But whatever safeguards the administration implements, Tehran may view these funds as replacing those that it has spent or plans to spend on terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or other malign activities instead of on food and medicine. The United States has already refrozen the $6 billion in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel, and should not consider any further relief of this kind.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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