Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh think the conflict with Iran may expire on the Navy’s maintenance schedule. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has another clock: how quickly it can replace the channels of its illicit funding, the company, flag, insurer, or bank account Washington just identified. Both clocks matter, but Gerecht and Takeyh’s Sept. 15 warning in the Wall Street Journal concentrates overwhelmingly on the first.
Buried in their argument is a sentence that deserves some consideration: “The Islamic Republic has a world-class sanctions-evasion network.” They acknowledge it, then move to Houthi advances along the Red Sea, attacks on Saudi infrastructure, Moscow and Beijing, and the regime’s fear of its own population. What they never really ask is whether a six-month naval clock is enough to defeat a system built to regenerate its ownership, flags, insurers, and financial intermediaries faster than Washington can identify and sanction them.
