Terrorists Have Taken Over Iran — Now What?

By Elliott Abrams

Monday, May 18, 2026

 

Even countries that acknowledge the IRGC is a terrorist organization are looking away. This evasion has consequences.

 

The takeover of the Iranian government by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is increasingly apparent. How should the United States and other countries react when a terrorist group gains control of a government?

 

First, that the Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist group is now very widely acknowledged. Not only the United States but also the United Kingdom, Australia, the countries of the European Union, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and many others call the IRGC a terrorist group.

 

Second, it is also understood very widely that the IRGC is the dominant power in Tehran now — not the clergy. The Soufan Center reported that “U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Khamenei’s replacement, his son Mojtaba, is severely injured and that IRGC commanders and powerful civilian leaders are ruling in his name.” Iran International reported that with “the Revolutionary Guard effectively assuming control over key state functions,” the IRGC “has blocked presidential appointments and decisions while erecting a security perimeter around the core of power, effectively sidelining the government from executive control.” The group says senior IRGC officers now exercise “full control over the core decision-making structure.” And according to the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, “Israel’s intelligence agencies have assembled a comprehensive assessment of who truly controls Iran. . . . Real power lies with a hardline group operating through the Supreme National Security Council and the IRGC, which now shapes Iran’s military and political direction.”

 

There is a precedent for a terrorist takeover: the Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority in 2006. In the parliamentary election held on January 25, 2006, Hamas won a clear majority of 74 seats to 45 for Fatah (out of the total of 132 seats) — and won the right to rule. The reaction from the United States was to break off contacts with every ministry in the Palestinian government and with the new (Hamas) prime minister. A USAID notice told its employees that “no contact is allowed with PA officials under the authority of the Prime Minister or any other minister. Contact with all officials in these ministries, including working-level employees, is prohibited.” All U.S. aid that went to the new Palestinian Authority government was immediately stopped. No money could be sent to the PA through U.S. banks, because aid to any part of the PA controlled by its new cabinet was considered to be aid to terrorism.

 

Not only the United States but also the Middle East Quartet (consisting of the U.S., EU, Russia, and the U.N.) demanded that the new PA government abandon violence and terror, acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and support all previous agreements between the PA and Israel, including the Oslo Accords.

 

The period of distancing from the PA ended in June 2007, when — amid Hamas–Fatah gunfights in Gaza — PA President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the PA government and appointed a new, non-Hamas prime minister.

 

What is striking about the IRGC takeover of the Iranian regime is that no such reaction has been visible from any quarter. U.S. sanctions on Iran are so heavy that they already exclude the kinds of support or association that existed with the PA before the 2006 elections. But what about the other countries that consider the IRGC a terrorist group — most of which are democracies that have anti-terrorism statutes? Not one has said IRGC control will change its relations with Iran; not one has closed its embassy; not one has even called attention to the problem it will face under its own laws.

 

Nations that not only said al-Qaeda and Islamic State were terrorist groups but treated them that way don’t seem to be lining up to treat Iran similarly. Why not? Convenience, in part; it’s simply easier to do nothing. Fear, perhaps; such pressure on Iran could well elicit terror attacks from the IRGC. And excuses: Iran is an actual country and a U.N. member state, while the PA, like other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State, was a different kind of entity.

 

But these failures to react do not change the facts: A terrorist group is taking over Iran, and even countries that acknowledge the IRGC is a terrorist organization are looking away and trying to avoid stating the truth. This evasion has consequences. Would it not help the Iranian people in their battle against the repressive regime if leading countries around the world labeled the new authorities terrorists? Would it not help stop Iran’s election to U.N. bodies? In October an Iranian diplomat was elected to the Advisory Committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a repellent step at that time when Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi sat in prison on trumped-up charges. Today, especially after the January massacres in Iran, clear recognition that Iran is under a terrorist government should be far easier — and should help nations avoid treating the regime as a legitimate government that represents the Iranian people.

 

And that is the bottom line: Recognition that Iran is run by a terrorist group means beginning to treat it as it deserves — as an outlaw — and beginning to show real solidarity with those who suffer most under it, the Iranian people. The United States showed the way in 2006 by refusing to look away from a transition in power and continue business as usual. Like the Hamas takeover in 2006, the IRGC takeover of 2026 is a major event that will change Iran’s future and has already changed the Middle East. Policy toward Iran by every nation that claims to oppose terrorism should now change as well.