2024 commences with the worrying spectre of Iran-backed groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatening to turn the crisis in the Middle East into an even larger war.

The central role the Islamic Republic of Iran Regime is playing in provoking and escalating conflict in the Middle East is a lesson that this is a regime that should have been comprehensively isolated and held accountable for its abhorrent behaviour.

It seems a very long time since the Biden Administration’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, claimed on September 29 last year that, ‘The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.’

This statement raised eyebrows among those of us who had become increasingly concerned at Tehran’s growing influence and danger.

When the Senate Committee which I chair held an inquiry into the abhorrent behaviour of the Islamic Republic of Iran regime at the end of 2022, the overwhelming view of submitters to our inquiry was that this murderous regime will not change or reform, and will continue to be a danger to its own citizens, its critics around the world, and to peace in the region.

Sadly, it is that view which has been proven correct. Just eight days after Sullivan’s optimistic comments, the Iran-backed Hamas launched its barbaric October 7 terror attacks.

In urging the government to implement the twelve recommendations of our inquiry to protect Australians and isolate the IRI regime, I warned in September last year that Tehran was successfully growing its influence, expanding its state-sponsored terror activities, extracting billions of dollars in ransom payments, and continuing to get closer to developing a nuclear bomb.

Our recommendations were specifically designed, in response to thousands of submissions and expert evidence, to hold the regime accountable for human rights abuses, and protect Australians and our Iranian diaspora from the regime’s violence and foreign interference.

One of the most important recommendations – one of ten the Albanese government has refused to act on – was that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps must be listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. This refusal to designate the IRGC has only become more puzzling now that, almost a year after the committee handed down its report, the IRGC is front and centre in direct attacks on coalition forces in the Middle East.

Attempts by the US and the West to appease and incentivise the IRI regime have unfortunately done little to reduce the danger of the regime and its proxies. Tehran appears confident that it can avoid consequences and continue to gain influence and power outside its own borders by using proxies to mount attacks.

The IRI regime has for too long strung along the West, profiting from threats and accepting incentives while carrying on its support for terrorism, human rights abuses and development of nuclear weapons.

The behaviour of the Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea conflict does affect Australia significantly, and not only because their actions have caused the cost of freight diverted to avoid the Red Sea to skyrocket.

Australia’s national security and economy rely heavily on working with our partners to prevent dangerous behaviour in the Asia-Pacific. If the US and its allies are unable to deter a militant group from attacking shipping in the Red Sea, it brings into question any assumption that the US and its allies including Australia can effectively deter aggression in our own region.

Continued chaos in the Middle East caused by IRI proxies not only suits Tehran, but it also benefits Putin’s Russia – which is growing its partnership with Tehran – by diverting US focus and resources away from supporting Ukraine.

The IRI regime’s ability to mobilise both its own terror networks and other radical Islamist groups is a serious threat to Australia and our allies, but an asset that dangerous authoritarians like Putin and his ilk will happily use to their advantage. It is well past time for Australia, and the West more broadly, to hold this abhorrent regime to account.

Claire Chandler is Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence & Trade References Committee and a Liberal Senator for Tasmania.

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