Photo credit: NBC News
Iran’s ambassador to Australia has been expelled, and in a counter-move, Australia’s embassy in Tehran has been shut down.
SBS News reports that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had provided “credible intelligence” that Iran was behind two recent antisemitic attacks in Australia.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday labelled the finding as “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression on Australian soil. An attack on our social cohesion is an attack on Australia.”
Australia has also announced that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), the body that purportedly launched attacks on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue and Sydney’s Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, will be listed a terrorist organisation.
Dr Jessica Genauer, senior lecturer in International Relations at Finders University, said, “I’m not surprised that the Iranian ambassador has been asked to leave because it was a very serious finding that the IRGC might be behind these terror attacks. But I’m surprised that they have moved so quickly to [announce they will] designate them as a terrorist organisation.”
The US, Sweden, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have also listed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
Labelling the entirety of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation has implications for the government’s ability to deal with that group. But because the IRGC is so embedded in the Iranian political and military landscape, it could mean that anyone who has served as part of the IRGC or is associated with them would be banned from entering Australia.
It will also have broad impacts on how Australia deals with Iran as a nation.
