Senator Chris Murphy Wants to Grant Iran’s Demands

As part of ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna, the Iranian regime has reportedly demanded that the United States remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. foreign-terrorist list. So, naturally, that’s what Connecticut senator Chris Murphy wants as well. “Would you take Iran’s Revolutionary Guard off the terror list in order to get a deal?” he was asked last week by Andrea Mitchell. “Yes” — emphasis his — “the practical impact of designating them as a foreign terrorist organization is inconsequential.”

We’ll get back to the alleged insignificance of the terrorist designation in a moment. First, it’s worth recalling Murphy’s 2019 clandestine meeting with Mohammad Javad Zarif in Europe, meant to undermine the Trump administration’s foreign policy — the American government’s foreign policy — of isolating Iran. Murphy’s encounter would be tantamount to a Republican senator secretly meeting with Russians in Vienna to undercut Joe Biden’s Ukrainian policy. Worse, perhaps, because by the time Murphy was schmoozing with Zarif, he knew the Islamic Republic was responsible for the deaths of at least 600 American servicemen — which translates to nearly one of every six U.S. deaths during the Iraq War. Of course, at the time, the Iranian government was also violently crushing peaceful demonstrations domestically, continuing to fund terror proxy groups across the Middle East, and taking foreign hostages.

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David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner.

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As part of ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna, the Iranian regime has reportedly demanded that the United States remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. foreign-terrorist list. So, naturally, that’s what Connecticut senator Chris Murphy wants as well. “Would you take Iran’s Revolutionary Guard off the terror list in order to get a deal?” he was asked last week by Andrea Mitchell. “Yes” — emphasis his — “the practical impact of designating them as a foreign terrorist organization is inconsequential.”

We’ll get back to the alleged insignificance of the terrorist designation in a moment. First, it’s worth recalling Murphy’s 2019 clandestine meeting with Mohammad Javad Zarif in Europe, meant to undermine the Trump administration’s foreign policy — the American government’s foreign policy — of isolating Iran. Murphy’s encounter would be tantamount to a Republican senator secretly meeting with Russians in Vienna to undercut Joe Biden’s Ukrainian policy. Worse, perhaps, because by the time Murphy was schmoozing with Zarif, he knew the Islamic Republic was responsible for the deaths of at least 600 American servicemen — which translates to nearly one of every six U.S. deaths during the Iraq War. Of course, at the time, the Iranian government was also violently crushing peaceful demonstrations domestically, continuing to fund terror proxy groups across the Middle East, and taking foreign hostages.