Will for Peace! Really?

Statement by Chris Hattingh MP – DA Spokesperson for Defence and Military Veterans:

The SANDF has confirmed that Iran is taking part in Exercise WILL FOR PEACE with the vessels Jamaran and Mahdavi.

This materially changes the character of the exercise and significantly alters its legal, diplomatic and geopolitical consequences.

Jamaran belongs to Iran’s regular navy (IRIN). Mahdavi, however, belongs to the IRGC Navy, the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC is a sanctioned and highly politicised military organisation that plays a central role in Iran’s regional proxy wars, missile and drone programmes, and destabilisation across several regions.

This does not reduce the serious concerns already raised about Iran’s participation as a state. Iran remains deeply sanctioned and actively involved in conflict and instability. The presence of an IRGC vessel does not replace that concern, it deepens and escalates it. It takes this naval exercise from controversial cooperation with a sanctioned state into direct engagement with a designated revolutionary military organisation at the centre of Iran’s coercive regional strategy.

Allowing an IRGC naval platform into South African waters therefore goes beyond normal state-to-state naval engagement. It creates real legal, diplomatic and strategic risks, including reputational damage, exposure to secondary sanctions, and harm to South Africa’s international partnerships.

For this reason, the difference between Iran’s regular navy and the IRGC is not technical or academic. It has real political and legal consequences in the international system. Engaging Iran’s regular navy is already politically and diplomatically contentious; engaging the IRGC takes it into a far more serious and dangerous category.

The Minister of Defence has a duty to explain why this distinction was considered acceptable, what risk assessments were done, and what legal and diplomatic advice informed the decision.

The DA will demand clear answers on who authorised the participation of an IRGC vessel, what legal and sanctions advice was obtained, what risks were assessed, and what diplomatic consequences were considered. We will pursue parliamentary oversight to ensure that South Africa’s defence and foreign policy is not quietly shifted in ways that damage our interests, our credibility, and our standing in the world.