The Biden administration and the EU have shown that they can impose significant political and economic pressure on a state if they want to. Both have imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, including restricting Moscow’s access to the EU’s capital and financial markets. But why not apply the same policy toward the Iranian regime? After all, the Tehran government is the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism. The theocratic establishment of Iran and its proxy militia and terror groups have instigated conflict in other nations and carriedout assassinations and terrorist activities for more than four decades. For instance, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, has been accused of carrying out many terrorist attacks, including the 1983 bombingof the US Marines barracks in Beirut, in which 241 American service personnel were killed, the 1983 US embassy bombingin Beirut, and the 1984 US embassy annex bombingin Beirut. It has also been accused of having a role in the 9/11 attacks in the US, over which federal courts orderedIran to pay $7.5 billion to the victims’ families. Hezbollah and Iran were also reportedlybehind the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people were killed, and the bombingof the USS Cole in 2000. It was also the Iranian government that providedaid to Al-Qaeda ahead of several of its terrorist attacks against the US. A New York court in 2011 found that: “The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of providing material aid and support to terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda.” It added: “Iran had been the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism against the United States and its interests for decades. Throughout the 1990s — at least — Iran regarded Al-Qaeda as a useful tool to destabilize US interests… The government of Iran aided, abetted and conspired with Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to launch large-scale bombing attacks against the United States by utilizing the sophisticated delivery mechanism of powerful suicide truck bombs.” In Europe too, many terror plots have been traced back to the Iranian regime. European officials in 2018 foileda terrorist attack against a large Free Iran convention in Paris. In February last year, Assadollah Assadi, an employee of the Iranian embassy in Vienna, was sentencedto 20 years in prison by a court in Belgium for his role in the planned attack. Tehran finances, arms and supports a wide range of terror and militia groups that wreak havoc on other nations. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh In November 2017, as Ahmed Mola Nissi walkedto his home in The Hague, Netherlands, an assassin gunned him down. Nissi, a Dutch citizen of Iranian origin, was a prominent figure in the Arab Struggle for the Liberation of Ahvaz, an activist group that fights for the formation of an independent state in western Iran. In 2019, the Dutch authorities publicly blamedthe Iranian government for commissioning the murder. Based on Nissi’s resistance to Iran’s tyrannical government, a target had been placed on his head and his life was ended to further the goals of Iran’s autocratic rulers, who the EU support and shield. Nissi’s death was not an isolated case, as another of Tehran’s political opponents, Ali Motamed, was killedin similar circumstances in Amsterdam in 2015. In the Middle East, the regime finances, arms and supports a wide range of terror and militia groups that wreak havoc on other nations in order to advance the ideological, revolutionary and geopolitical interests of the Islamic Republic. For example, the sophisticated drones and missiles that the Houthi militia is using to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE most likely come from the Iranian regime, which has recognizedthe terror group as the official government of Yemen. Based on a UN report released in January 2021, there is strong evidence that Iran is a provider of weapons to the Houthis. A UN panel of experts report reported: “An increasing body of evidence suggests that individuals or entities in the Islamic Republic of Iran supply significant volumes of weapons and components to the Houthis.” It is clear that the Iranian regime has long been a major source of conflict and instability in the Middle East. The only way to confront it is to impose significant pressure on the ruling clerics politically and economically. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view