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** America's New Terrorist Allies: 'The Mother of all Disasters' ([link removed])
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 22, 2022 at 5:00 am
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* The Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are already under attack by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen. The Biden administration removed the Houthis from the list of foreign terrorist organizations and has since refused to reclassify it as a terrorist organization, despite the missile and drone attacks on Washington's Arab allies and friends as recently as this week.
* "It is true that the United States wants to withdraw from the region, but Washington will then have given China, Russia and Iran unprecedented strength.... By removing the Revolutionary Guards from the list of terrorist organizations, Washington will grant Iran the freedom to move and act in the region in the context of a Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance." — Tarik Al-Hamid, Saudi journalist, former editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, March 20, 2022.
* Al-Hamid reminded the Biden administration that Saudi Arabia "is the exact opposite of Iran, as it does not want control, but rather the stability and independence of countries." — Tarik Al-Hamid, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* "Lifting the sanctions while Hezbollah revels in Lebanon and Syria, and Iranian militias wreak havoc in Iraq amid Iran's continued support for the Houthis in Yemen, is nothing but a crime against our region." — Tarik Al-Hamid, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* "The problem with this American change is that it came while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are leading internal and regional efforts to bring stability and moderation." — Saudi political analyst Abdullah bin Bejad Al-Otaibi, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* "There is an American and Western policy that cannot be condoned, which is the insistence on making Saudi Arabia and the UAE militarily exposed to the attacks of the Iranian Houthi militia in Yemen, ballistic missiles and drones, and imposing illogical requirements on the export of arms to confront these serious threats." — Abdullah bin Bejad Al-Otaibi, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* "The hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, which enabled the Taliban to seize control of the country, removing the Houthi militia from the terrorism list, seeking to remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the list of terrorism, silence about Iranian bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan - these are very dangerous policies for the world and the Arab countries that support stability and peace." — Abdullah bin Bejad Al-Otaibi, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* The IRGC and the mullahs are "the head of regional and international terrorism, from Al-Qaeda to ISIS, and from the Lebanese Hezbollah to the Shiite terror militias all over the world." — Abdullah bin Bejad Al-Otaibi, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20, 2022.
* "Have you seen bigger liars?" — Dr. Mahmoud Al-Shami, Syrian writer, Twitter, March 20, 2022.
* "What did the Revolutionary Guard offer America as a price for the reward of being removed from the list of terrorist organizations and making billions of dollars available to it by lifting sanctions on Iran so that it could finance its terrorist activities at the expense of threatening the security of the Gulf and the stability of the Middle East?" — Dr. Mohamed El-Sherif, Egyptian, Twitter, March 20, 2022.
* "Mr. Blinken, it will be a true holiday for Iranians when they get rid of the murderous [Iranian] regime to which you are making terrible concessions. Mr. Blinken, the Iranian people will not forgive the US if the Revolutionary Guard, the largest terrorist organization backed by an official government, is removed from the list of terrorism." — Masood A. R., an Iranian opponent of the mullahs, addressing the US Secretary of State, Twitter, March 20, 2022.
* "I think that when you remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the list of terrorist organizations, you will make a big mistake, and this will lead to the spread of Iranian terrorism and this will affect the region and allies, and America and Europe will be vulnerable to direct Iranian terrorism." — Abdul Hadi Al-Shehri, Saudi writer, Twitter, March 19, 2022.
* The question arises: If the Biden administration believes that the Houthi militia and the IRGC are not terrorist organizations, then why not also remove Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the blacklist? Indeed, if the US administration believes that it can do business with these terrorists and their sponsors in Tehran, then why not own up to its policies and straightforwardly declare all these terrorist groups as America's newest allies?

The Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are already under attack by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen. The Biden administration removed the Houthis from the list of foreign terrorist organizations and has since refused to reclassify it as a terrorist organization, despite the missile and drone attacks on Washington's Arab allies and friends as recently as this week. Pictured: An Iranian Simorgh drone, carrying a missile, during a military exercise on September 11, 2020, near the Strait of Hormuz. (Photo by Iranian Army Office/AFP via Getty Images)

Unlike the Biden administration, many Arabs do not distinguish between one terrorist group and another. That is why news about the possibility that the Biden administration is considering removing the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the terrorism blacklist has been received by many Arabs with disbelief and shock.

The Arabs hold the mullahs and the IRGC responsible for various war crimes and atrocities against several countries and people around the world. Just last week, the IRGC claimed credit for a missile attack on an alleged "Zionist base" in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. Days later, the IRGC issued a threat to launch missiles at the Gulf states.

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