Valar.
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US officially declares IRGC as terrorist organisation
- Thread starter RIP Pak LAW
- Start date
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Paksitan/Iran have normal brotherly ties
Pakistan does not have a foreign policy to effect internal politics of brotherly nation
No outsider should have authority to come to a country and change it's leadership by spreading anarchy , Pakistan strongly opposes those policies
Spread of anarchy by means of Leadership change only yields suffering for innocent people and destroys economies of nation , that is not the Principles Pakistan believes in
Last edited:
Valar.
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Paksitan/Iran have normal brotherly ties
Answer my previous questions,please.
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Well from Pakistan's perspective , a stable Iran is in our National Interest and plus they have always supported Kashmir issue
Iran has full right to protect it's border their own allies like Syria , build a road if they want to forge defense agreements if they need to
Pakistan -Iran Trade is our main objective
Building a road from Iran to Syria , is their business deal with Syria
Owning a port in Syria is their own sovreign right for Syria
Iran has full right to protect it's border their own allies like Syria , build a road if they want to forge defense agreements if they need to
Pakistan -Iran Trade is our main objective
Building a road from Iran to Syria , is their business deal with Syria
Owning a port in Syria is their own sovreign right for Syria
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airmarshal
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This American and Israeli terrorism has to come to an end for world peace.
I thought Trump was America great again. He has made America a lackey of Israel. Moving embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Golan part of Israel and now this. It seems there is no end to how much America will lose its political capital to appease Israel
Iranis by the way are way too arrogant. They must be humble. They carry too much pride being Persian. Although I dont in any way support or favor American Israeli terror and their stance against Iran.
Iran is the only possible threat to Israel. All others have been destroyed by American since 9/11.
I thought Trump was America great again. He has made America a lackey of Israel. Moving embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Golan part of Israel and now this. It seems there is no end to how much America will lose its political capital to appease Israel
Iranis by the way are way too arrogant. They must be humble. They carry too much pride being Persian. Although I dont in any way support or favor American Israeli terror and their stance against Iran.
Iran is the only possible threat to Israel. All others have been destroyed by American since 9/11.
Homo Sapiens
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Netanyahu is fulfilling his every wild dream by using Trump. In this moment, Netanyahu perhaps the luckiest person ever. Trump presidency is like God sent for him. Israel now seems invincible. Everything in it's favor. But there is a saying, too good fortune do not lasts too long.
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AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Iran Revolutionary Guards are a local internal force for their own security it's a self defense force
A well trained self defence force
Iran just announced about road to connect Tehran to Syria , already Israeli lobby is so worried
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-building-road-connect-syria-iraq-1319034
ran has begun building a road slated to eventually connect the country to Syria through neighboring Iraq, a move signaling its extensive regional influence in spite of United States-led efforts to contain the revolutionary Shiite Muslim power.
Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami attended an inauguration ceremony Tuesday for the construction of a highway linking the Iranian cities of Kermanshah, Biston and Homeyl, which is located just miles from the border of Iraq. The official said that the project was a key step toward physically linking Iran with its Arab allies Iraq and Syria and would contribute to the country's economy at a time when it was beset by U.S. sanctions.
Addressing the crowd gathered to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolutionthat ousted an absolute monarchy backed by the West, Eslami said that "infrastructure projects create hope and accelerate the development process." He estimated the Kermanshah-Bisotun-Homeyl project would be about 87.6 miles long and cost about $450 million, 70 percent of which would come from the private sector, something he emphasized was important amid "the current situation" in the country.
Recalling his recent trip to the Syrian capital, Eslami said that "the issue of facilitating transit between the three countries of Iran, Iraq and Syria was raised" and that the "Kermanshah-Bisotun-Homeyl road is considered a key part of this corridor."
Syria leases Mediterranean port to Iran
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/article/syria-leases-mediterranean-port-to-iran-raising-alarms/
The Syrian move comes in response to an official Iranian request, presented to Damascus last February. Realizing that they were unable to establish a permanent military presence like that of the Russians, or to illegally grab territory like the Turks, the Iranians settled for long-term economic influence in Syria in order to maintain a foothold in a crucial part of the region.
Iran gave the Syrians a line of credit totaling $6.6 billion since 2011, and that was topped up with an additional $1 billion in 2017. However, over the past three months, relations between the two countries have become even warmer, especially after President Bashar al-Assad landed in Tehran in February to meet with President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The two governments agreed to establish a joint chamber of commerce, a joint bank, and a power station in Latakia. Iranian developers were also given the rights to construct a 200,000-apartment housing development near the Syrian capital
Seems like Iran is building regional roads and trade fairly safe country
A well trained self defence force
Iran just announced about road to connect Tehran to Syria , already Israeli lobby is so worried
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-building-road-connect-syria-iraq-1319034
ran has begun building a road slated to eventually connect the country to Syria through neighboring Iraq, a move signaling its extensive regional influence in spite of United States-led efforts to contain the revolutionary Shiite Muslim power.
Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami attended an inauguration ceremony Tuesday for the construction of a highway linking the Iranian cities of Kermanshah, Biston and Homeyl, which is located just miles from the border of Iraq. The official said that the project was a key step toward physically linking Iran with its Arab allies Iraq and Syria and would contribute to the country's economy at a time when it was beset by U.S. sanctions.
Addressing the crowd gathered to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolutionthat ousted an absolute monarchy backed by the West, Eslami said that "infrastructure projects create hope and accelerate the development process." He estimated the Kermanshah-Bisotun-Homeyl project would be about 87.6 miles long and cost about $450 million, 70 percent of which would come from the private sector, something he emphasized was important amid "the current situation" in the country.
Recalling his recent trip to the Syrian capital, Eslami said that "the issue of facilitating transit between the three countries of Iran, Iraq and Syria was raised" and that the "Kermanshah-Bisotun-Homeyl road is considered a key part of this corridor."
Syria leases Mediterranean port to Iran
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/article/syria-leases-mediterranean-port-to-iran-raising-alarms/
The Syrian move comes in response to an official Iranian request, presented to Damascus last February. Realizing that they were unable to establish a permanent military presence like that of the Russians, or to illegally grab territory like the Turks, the Iranians settled for long-term economic influence in Syria in order to maintain a foothold in a crucial part of the region.
Iran gave the Syrians a line of credit totaling $6.6 billion since 2011, and that was topped up with an additional $1 billion in 2017. However, over the past three months, relations between the two countries have become even warmer, especially after President Bashar al-Assad landed in Tehran in February to meet with President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The two governments agreed to establish a joint chamber of commerce, a joint bank, and a power station in Latakia. Iranian developers were also given the rights to construct a 200,000-apartment housing development near the Syrian capital
Seems like Iran is building regional roads and trade fairly safe country
Last edited:
Jf Thunder
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yup, its them
but someone seems to be dodging that simple question a lot
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Hey , I say what is the official policy for Pakistan with respect to Iran and our policy has been same since 60's about Iran they are our regional friendly neighbors
Never once , their was a negative feeling about Iran , Iran is as friendly as one can expect a neighbor to be peaceful, educated , cultured , great food , friendly with Pakistan
Iran's local defense force is just their to protect their civilians they never ventured out of Iran so any claim from foreign entities is baseless and frankly absurd
See this map this is inside Iran
Quite grateful Iran is our neighbor who we can potentially have tremendous ties
Never once , their was a negative feeling about Iran , Iran is as friendly as one can expect a neighbor to be peaceful, educated , cultured , great food , friendly with Pakistan
Iran's local defense force is just their to protect their civilians they never ventured out of Iran so any claim from foreign entities is baseless and frankly absurd
See this map this is inside Iran
Quite grateful Iran is our neighbor who we can potentially have tremendous ties
Last edited:
Aramagedon
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AZADPAKISTAN2009
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This whole drama of regime change is not Pakistan's Moral view , we never believed in this none sense and it is foreign concept to us
Iranians choose their own path and selected their own leadership and that is all their is to it
Every country chooses it's own leader or a leader emerges by natural means
The countries remain stable and grow that way
This whole regime change drama only destroys infrastructure and schools, homes, hospitals
No regime ever needed change in Syria , no regime change is needed in Iran
Look at Afghanistan , foreign interference has resulted in unstability and no government ever lasts
How well this Regime change worked in Iraq or Libya ? Failed miserably
Sometimes US wants regime change in Turkey
Sometimes US wants regime change in Iran
Sometimes US wants regime change in Syria
Sometimes US wants regime change in Iraq
Sometimes US wants a regime change in Afghanistan
Sometimes US wants a regime change in China or North Korea
How about a simple "No" !
It is a polite way to refuse to cooperate because you don't morally or ethically believe it
Any sane person who follow's realistic review of Iran will see they are 100 % peaceful nation , minding their own business for last 30 years
Iranians choose their own path and selected their own leadership and that is all their is to it
Every country chooses it's own leader or a leader emerges by natural means
The countries remain stable and grow that way
This whole regime change drama only destroys infrastructure and schools, homes, hospitals
No regime ever needed change in Syria , no regime change is needed in Iran
Look at Afghanistan , foreign interference has resulted in unstability and no government ever lasts
How well this Regime change worked in Iraq or Libya ? Failed miserably
Sometimes US wants regime change in Turkey
Sometimes US wants regime change in Iran
Sometimes US wants regime change in Syria
Sometimes US wants regime change in Iraq
Sometimes US wants a regime change in Afghanistan
Sometimes US wants a regime change in China or North Korea
How about a simple "No" !
It is a polite way to refuse to cooperate because you don't morally or ethically believe it
Any sane person who follow's realistic review of Iran will see they are 100 % peaceful nation , minding their own business for last 30 years
Last edited:
Tps43
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Hahahaha
The SC
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The U.S. Escalates Even Further Against Iran—To What End?
Declaring the country’s most powerful security services a terrorist organization is just the Trump administration’s latest move in a long pressure campaign against Iran.
Kathy Gilsinan
10:37 AM ET
The IRGC marches during a 2011 parade in Tehran commemorating the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.Reuters
Updated at 2:35 p.m. ET.
The Trump administration added another layer to its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran when it declared the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”—an escalation that exposes to U.S. criminal prosecution anyone supporting the most powerful security services of the Iranian government.
“This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft,” President Donald Trump said, announcing the decision in a statement Monday morning. “This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO.”
The designation goes into effect a week from now. Depending on whom you ask, the step is long-overdue recognition of reality, or a superfluous gesture, or even a provocation that puts U.S. troops at risk.
The Islamic Republic is already subject to a wide array of sanctions, including Treasury Department terrorism-related sanctions against the IRGC; its oil exports have plummeted since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year; its economy, which was mismanaged and unhealthy even before then, has suffered further. The United States has considered Iran a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, a designation that also involves sanctions.
Read: The U.S. is developing a new way to weaken Iran
The IRGC, however, is the body driving many destabilizing regional activities that the Trump administration has declared must cease, through its support for regional proxies such as Hezbollah and its involvement in terrorist schemes further afield—including what the United States called an attempted plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington in 2011. The U.S. holds the IRGC responsible for the deaths of nearly 260 Americans, and dozens of their local and international allies, in separate bombings at the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex there in 1984. The hope is that the designation will make it even harder for other countries to do business with the Islamic Republic, tightening the noose still further after repeated rounds of sanctions.
From its roots in the Iranian revolution of 1979, which it was founded to protect and propagate, the IRGC has grown in clout and influence—not just over Iran’s regional policies through its Quds Force, or in its suppression of domestic dissent through its Basij militias, but also as a powerful economic actor. Rand Corporation researchers a decade ago assessed that its influence extended “into virtually every corner of Iranian political life in society,” with interests in industries from auto manufacturing to laser eye surgery, plus smuggling and other black-market activities. One U.S.-based IRGC founder turned dissident once dubbed the organization “something like the Communist Party, the KGB, a business complex, and the Mafia.”
The true extent of its grip on the Iranian economy is murky, however, as then–CIA Director Mike Pompeo admitted in 2017. “It is a difficult, complex intelligence undertaking to sort out which entities are controlled by the Quds Force,” the IRGC’s external arm, he said. (The Quds Force is itself subject to terrorism-related Treasury sanctions dating from 2007.) “It is intentionally opaque, but as much as 20 percent of the Iranian economy is controlled by them.”
The new terrorism designation means anyone doing business in Iran risks criminal prosecution in the United States on charges of material support to a terrorist organization. Even, theoretically, a European businessman just looking to invest in a laser-eye-surgery outfit. Or possibly, depending on what kinds of exceptions the policy allows, a U.S. security contractor working against ISIS remnants alongside Iraq’s powerful Shia militias—some of which are backed by the IRGC. This differs from the existing sanctions against the IRGC, which fall under Treasury Department authorities and mainly involve financial penalties for being part of or supporting the group.
The intent is to further chill foreign investment prospects for a country starved of cash, where it was quite difficult to invest to begin with.
Existing sanctions made it so difficult, in fact, that some wonder why the administration has bothered with the designation at all. “We do not need to do this to maximize economic pressure on the IRGC, or Iran, for that matter,” Richard Nephew, who was the sanctions expert for the team that negotiated with Iran under President Barack Obama, wrote in an email. The Treasury sanctions, plus a 2010 law called the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, mean “only the incorrigibles” would do business with anyone they suspect of IRGC ties—major companies avoid them anyway. “In the Obama administration, this was enough to prove to us that this was not worth doing. Then, when we got into the possible negatives—including what this might mean should IRGC forces and U.S. forces be operating in the same space … we concluded this might do more harm than good.”
Mark Dubowitz, who heads the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies and has advised the Trump administration on Iran policy, advocated for the new designation, and argues that it makes a big difference. “This just layers on top of all of the current sanctions an additional and more expansive, punitive measure that will deter more business and, I believe, diminish current business that’s still ongoing between the Europeans and the Iranians, and the Asians and the Iranians,” he told me.
As for the question of what it means for U.S. troops, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called for designating U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization—implying that Iran would view them as targets just as they’d view, say, ISIS members. Maybe that’s bluster, but it introduces a volatile dynamic at a moment when, following the fall of the caliphate, U.S. forces and Iranian forces and proxies are competing for influence in Syria and Iraq, said Ariane Tabatabai, an associate political scientist at Rand. “Iran doesn’t have as much to lose as it had in the past,” she told me. Tabatabai noted that one IRGC-affiliated account on social media had suggested targeting U.S. contractors—one potential way of escalating without hitting American troops directly.
Read: It’s Trump vs. everyone else on Iran at the UN
Indeed, this possible risk was what helped prevent an FTO designation in the past. When the Treasury Department made its own terrorism designation against the IRGC in the fall of 2017, then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained that the position of U.S. troops was a reason not to go further. “There are particular risks and complexities to designating an entire army of a country,” he said at the time, adding that it “would put in place certain requirements where we run into one another in the battlefield, and it would trigger actions that are not necessarily in the best interests of our military actions.”
In the meantime, though, the administration has declared the Islamic State territorially defeated and is planning a withdrawal of most of its troops from Syria, where the IRGC has a strong presence. Tillerson has left the State Department, and Pompeo, who has advocated a much tougher line against Iran, has joined. The State Department last week publicized declassified Pentagon figures, calling Iran responsible for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq. “This accounts for 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011,” said Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, at a State Department briefing last week. “This death toll is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC’s proxies.”
A spokesman for Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has been pushing for the designation for five years, wrote in an email: “Iran is trying to blackmail the U.S. by threatening even more terrorist attacks if we call out their ongoing terrorist attacks, but [Senator] Cruz believes we can’t accept that blackmail.” Addressing a question about possible risks to U.S. troops at a Monday press conference, Hook responded: “The IRGC has been threatening American troops almost since its inception … What endangers American troops in the Middle East is an IRGC that operates with impunity and has never had its ambitions checked in the Middle East.”
Depending on what exceptions apply to the new designation, it also potentially exposes U.S. troops to a different kind of risk: the possible need to coordinate with a group their government considers a terrorist organization. “In the battle of Tikrit against the Islamic State, the US Air Force provided air support to Major General Qassem Suleimani, the Quds Force, and the Iraqi Shia militias under Suleimani’s direct or indirect command,” Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and an expert on the IRGC, wrote in an email. “In doing so, the US Air Force provided material support to a terrorist organization, a deed prohibited by the U.S. Treasury.”
Just as the United States was in de facto alignment with the IRGC against ISIS, Alfoneh pointed out, there will be another terrorist group that threatens both parties’ interests. “Sooner or later,” Alfoneh wrote, “the U.S. government will cooperate with the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, to fight a real terrorist organization. How does the administration explain that to the public?”
Read: Trying to kill the Iran deal could end up saving it
Whatever the regional consequences of the designation, there’s a whole other set of domestic political consequences ahead of the 2020 campaign for the presidency. The Democratic National Committee has called for returning to the Iran deal Obama negotiated and Trump left; the more sanctions are layered on to the Iranian regime, the more complicated it becomes to unravel them in the event a Democrat wins the presidency and seeks to reenter the deal.
Iran, administration officials have said, already faces “unprecedented” financial pressure—but more may be coming. The Cruz spokesperson wrote that the senator intended to push to codify the designation alongside “layers of sanctions for the full range of the IRGC’s malign activities”; Dubowitz advocated in The Wall Street Journal building “a wall of sanctions”—to encircle Iran, but also, by implication, to constrain any Trump successor’s freedom of maneuver. “Politically, it would be hard to make the case for dismantling these sanctions, since all evidence points to Tehran’s wrongdoing,” he wrote. “If blocked from delivering sanctions relief to Iran, the next administration would have little choice but to wield U.S. economic leverage and negotiate a follow-on agreement that addresses the fundamental flaws of the JCPOA”—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran deal is formally known.
Administration officials have said the campaign of mounting pressure is designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table, to conclude a deal that not only permanently blocks it from getting a nuclear weapon, but fundamentally changes the regime’s behavior in its region. Writing in The New York Times Monday, ahead of Trump’s announcement, Hook held out the prospect of better relations: “Isn’t it time to abandon the policies that have kept the people of Iran and the United States apart since 1979?” Tehran’s leaders have publicly refused to negotiate so far. But the wager is that if the prospect of better relations isn’t carrot enough, there’s always more stick.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
In brief..it is a complicated matter..
Declaring the country’s most powerful security services a terrorist organization is just the Trump administration’s latest move in a long pressure campaign against Iran.
Kathy Gilsinan
10:37 AM ET
The IRGC marches during a 2011 parade in Tehran commemorating the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.Reuters
Updated at 2:35 p.m. ET.
The Trump administration added another layer to its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran when it declared the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”—an escalation that exposes to U.S. criminal prosecution anyone supporting the most powerful security services of the Iranian government.
“This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft,” President Donald Trump said, announcing the decision in a statement Monday morning. “This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO.”
The designation goes into effect a week from now. Depending on whom you ask, the step is long-overdue recognition of reality, or a superfluous gesture, or even a provocation that puts U.S. troops at risk.
The Islamic Republic is already subject to a wide array of sanctions, including Treasury Department terrorism-related sanctions against the IRGC; its oil exports have plummeted since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year; its economy, which was mismanaged and unhealthy even before then, has suffered further. The United States has considered Iran a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, a designation that also involves sanctions.
Read: The U.S. is developing a new way to weaken Iran
The IRGC, however, is the body driving many destabilizing regional activities that the Trump administration has declared must cease, through its support for regional proxies such as Hezbollah and its involvement in terrorist schemes further afield—including what the United States called an attempted plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington in 2011. The U.S. holds the IRGC responsible for the deaths of nearly 260 Americans, and dozens of their local and international allies, in separate bombings at the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex there in 1984. The hope is that the designation will make it even harder for other countries to do business with the Islamic Republic, tightening the noose still further after repeated rounds of sanctions.
From its roots in the Iranian revolution of 1979, which it was founded to protect and propagate, the IRGC has grown in clout and influence—not just over Iran’s regional policies through its Quds Force, or in its suppression of domestic dissent through its Basij militias, but also as a powerful economic actor. Rand Corporation researchers a decade ago assessed that its influence extended “into virtually every corner of Iranian political life in society,” with interests in industries from auto manufacturing to laser eye surgery, plus smuggling and other black-market activities. One U.S.-based IRGC founder turned dissident once dubbed the organization “something like the Communist Party, the KGB, a business complex, and the Mafia.”
The true extent of its grip on the Iranian economy is murky, however, as then–CIA Director Mike Pompeo admitted in 2017. “It is a difficult, complex intelligence undertaking to sort out which entities are controlled by the Quds Force,” the IRGC’s external arm, he said. (The Quds Force is itself subject to terrorism-related Treasury sanctions dating from 2007.) “It is intentionally opaque, but as much as 20 percent of the Iranian economy is controlled by them.”
The new terrorism designation means anyone doing business in Iran risks criminal prosecution in the United States on charges of material support to a terrorist organization. Even, theoretically, a European businessman just looking to invest in a laser-eye-surgery outfit. Or possibly, depending on what kinds of exceptions the policy allows, a U.S. security contractor working against ISIS remnants alongside Iraq’s powerful Shia militias—some of which are backed by the IRGC. This differs from the existing sanctions against the IRGC, which fall under Treasury Department authorities and mainly involve financial penalties for being part of or supporting the group.
The intent is to further chill foreign investment prospects for a country starved of cash, where it was quite difficult to invest to begin with.
Existing sanctions made it so difficult, in fact, that some wonder why the administration has bothered with the designation at all. “We do not need to do this to maximize economic pressure on the IRGC, or Iran, for that matter,” Richard Nephew, who was the sanctions expert for the team that negotiated with Iran under President Barack Obama, wrote in an email. The Treasury sanctions, plus a 2010 law called the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, mean “only the incorrigibles” would do business with anyone they suspect of IRGC ties—major companies avoid them anyway. “In the Obama administration, this was enough to prove to us that this was not worth doing. Then, when we got into the possible negatives—including what this might mean should IRGC forces and U.S. forces be operating in the same space … we concluded this might do more harm than good.”
Mark Dubowitz, who heads the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies and has advised the Trump administration on Iran policy, advocated for the new designation, and argues that it makes a big difference. “This just layers on top of all of the current sanctions an additional and more expansive, punitive measure that will deter more business and, I believe, diminish current business that’s still ongoing between the Europeans and the Iranians, and the Asians and the Iranians,” he told me.
As for the question of what it means for U.S. troops, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called for designating U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization—implying that Iran would view them as targets just as they’d view, say, ISIS members. Maybe that’s bluster, but it introduces a volatile dynamic at a moment when, following the fall of the caliphate, U.S. forces and Iranian forces and proxies are competing for influence in Syria and Iraq, said Ariane Tabatabai, an associate political scientist at Rand. “Iran doesn’t have as much to lose as it had in the past,” she told me. Tabatabai noted that one IRGC-affiliated account on social media had suggested targeting U.S. contractors—one potential way of escalating without hitting American troops directly.
Read: It’s Trump vs. everyone else on Iran at the UN
Indeed, this possible risk was what helped prevent an FTO designation in the past. When the Treasury Department made its own terrorism designation against the IRGC in the fall of 2017, then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained that the position of U.S. troops was a reason not to go further. “There are particular risks and complexities to designating an entire army of a country,” he said at the time, adding that it “would put in place certain requirements where we run into one another in the battlefield, and it would trigger actions that are not necessarily in the best interests of our military actions.”
In the meantime, though, the administration has declared the Islamic State territorially defeated and is planning a withdrawal of most of its troops from Syria, where the IRGC has a strong presence. Tillerson has left the State Department, and Pompeo, who has advocated a much tougher line against Iran, has joined. The State Department last week publicized declassified Pentagon figures, calling Iran responsible for the deaths of more than 600 U.S. service members in Iraq. “This accounts for 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011,” said Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, at a State Department briefing last week. “This death toll is in addition to the many thousands of Iraqis killed by the IRGC’s proxies.”
A spokesman for Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has been pushing for the designation for five years, wrote in an email: “Iran is trying to blackmail the U.S. by threatening even more terrorist attacks if we call out their ongoing terrorist attacks, but [Senator] Cruz believes we can’t accept that blackmail.” Addressing a question about possible risks to U.S. troops at a Monday press conference, Hook responded: “The IRGC has been threatening American troops almost since its inception … What endangers American troops in the Middle East is an IRGC that operates with impunity and has never had its ambitions checked in the Middle East.”
Depending on what exceptions apply to the new designation, it also potentially exposes U.S. troops to a different kind of risk: the possible need to coordinate with a group their government considers a terrorist organization. “In the battle of Tikrit against the Islamic State, the US Air Force provided air support to Major General Qassem Suleimani, the Quds Force, and the Iraqi Shia militias under Suleimani’s direct or indirect command,” Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and an expert on the IRGC, wrote in an email. “In doing so, the US Air Force provided material support to a terrorist organization, a deed prohibited by the U.S. Treasury.”
Just as the United States was in de facto alignment with the IRGC against ISIS, Alfoneh pointed out, there will be another terrorist group that threatens both parties’ interests. “Sooner or later,” Alfoneh wrote, “the U.S. government will cooperate with the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, to fight a real terrorist organization. How does the administration explain that to the public?”
Read: Trying to kill the Iran deal could end up saving it
Whatever the regional consequences of the designation, there’s a whole other set of domestic political consequences ahead of the 2020 campaign for the presidency. The Democratic National Committee has called for returning to the Iran deal Obama negotiated and Trump left; the more sanctions are layered on to the Iranian regime, the more complicated it becomes to unravel them in the event a Democrat wins the presidency and seeks to reenter the deal.
Iran, administration officials have said, already faces “unprecedented” financial pressure—but more may be coming. The Cruz spokesperson wrote that the senator intended to push to codify the designation alongside “layers of sanctions for the full range of the IRGC’s malign activities”; Dubowitz advocated in The Wall Street Journal building “a wall of sanctions”—to encircle Iran, but also, by implication, to constrain any Trump successor’s freedom of maneuver. “Politically, it would be hard to make the case for dismantling these sanctions, since all evidence points to Tehran’s wrongdoing,” he wrote. “If blocked from delivering sanctions relief to Iran, the next administration would have little choice but to wield U.S. economic leverage and negotiate a follow-on agreement that addresses the fundamental flaws of the JCPOA”—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran deal is formally known.
Administration officials have said the campaign of mounting pressure is designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table, to conclude a deal that not only permanently blocks it from getting a nuclear weapon, but fundamentally changes the regime’s behavior in its region. Writing in The New York Times Monday, ahead of Trump’s announcement, Hook held out the prospect of better relations: “Isn’t it time to abandon the policies that have kept the people of Iran and the United States apart since 1979?” Tehran’s leaders have publicly refused to negotiate so far. But the wager is that if the prospect of better relations isn’t carrot enough, there’s always more stick.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...utionary-guard-terrorist-organization/586663/
In brief..it is a complicated matter..
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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US can escalate all it wants
Euro-Asia continent does not wants a unstable Iran
We won't tolerate destabilization of our neighbor which will impact our economy
An unstable Iran is not in National Interest of Pakistan
Refugee crisis from Iran will be massive humanitarian crisis
Turkey does not agree to it
Pakistan does not agree to it
Russia is 100% against such move
China is 100% against it
Most of Europe want to do normal trade with Iran
We can't have outsiders come in , blow up an economy for country and then throw in weapons to mercenaries and claim freedom is near
Every thing is great in iRAN it is their country , their rules and their people
Euro-Asia continent does not wants a unstable Iran
We won't tolerate destabilization of our neighbor which will impact our economy
- Iran has a right to build it's own defence
- Iran has right to make road to Syria
- Iran has a right to 100% operate a port given to it free by Syria
- If Iran is selling oil that oil is not stolen it is from their own land so purchasing it is legal
An unstable Iran is not in National Interest of Pakistan
Refugee crisis from Iran will be massive humanitarian crisis
Turkey does not agree to it
Pakistan does not agree to it
Russia is 100% against such move
China is 100% against it
Most of Europe want to do normal trade with Iran
We can't have outsiders come in , blow up an economy for country and then throw in weapons to mercenaries and claim freedom is near
Every thing is great in iRAN it is their country , their rules and their people
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