President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced today the State Department is designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "foreign terrorist organization," following months of speculation that the administration was considering blacklisting the most powerful branch of the country's armed forces.
Though the State Department has long labeled the Iranian regime the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, before today, it had never classified an element of a foreign government as a terrorist group. The IRGC joins a list that includes al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS, and Boko Haram. It marks the latest move toward pressuring Iran since the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
"It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments," Trump said in a statement. "It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism."
"The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign," Trump added.
The Revolutionary Guard, along with its specialized Quds Force, supports terrorists around the world, carries out cyberattacks and assassinations, funds illicit missile development, and wields huge influence both inside the country and around the region.
The IRGC also plays an integral role in funding, training, and guiding Iran’s global proxies — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen — and in propping up Bashar Assad in Syria.
Pompeo told reporters the designation will take effect April 15. “This designation should surprise no one. For 40 years, the IRGC has engaged in terrorism," he said. "It pretends to be a regular military organization, but none of us should be fooled."
Pompeo gave a number of examples of Iran’s involvement in terrorist attacks against America, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. service members, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. In 2011, the Quds Force plotted to bomb a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
“With this designation, the Trump administration is simply recognizing reality," Pompeo added. “Our designation makes clear to the world that the IRGC not just supports other terrorist groups but engages in terrorism itself.”
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif responded by sending a letter to President Hassan Rouhani suggesting that Iran put U.S. Central Command on its terrorism list. In a tweet yesterday, Zarif warned the United States that designating the IRGC would result in "consequences for US forces in the region."
“I’ve seen foreign minister Zarif make many public statements before," Pompeo told reporters, "and an attack on the United States is something that they ought to think more than twice about.”
The Treasury Department started the process in 2017 when it labeled the IRGC a "specially designated global terrorist," making it easier for the U.S. to combat Iran's terrorism by targeting its financing.
Trump has long considered making this designation, and Pompeo has reportedly wanted to label the IRGC a terrorist group since he accepted the job.
The decision to designate the IRGC follows a surprise announcement from the State Department last week revealing that Iran is responsible for the deaths of more than 600 American service members in Iraq, higher than the previous estimate of 500.
Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the Defense Department, told the Washington Examiner the exact figure is “at least 603.” Robertson said that “the casualties were the result of explosively formed penetrators, other improvised explosive devices, improvised rocket-assisted munitions, rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms, sniper, and other attacks in Iraq.”
Pompeo called out Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, leader of the IRGC's extraterritorial wing the Quds Force, by name. “With this designation we are sending a clear signal to the Iranian regime — including Qassem Soleimani and his band of thugs — that we are standing up to the regime’s outlaw behavior," Pompeo said. “The blood of the 603 American soldiers … is on his hands and the hands of the IRGC more broadly." Senior administration officials said that the Trump administration believes Soleimani is the true Iranian foreign minister, not Zarif.
The officials acknowledged that the designation was an unprecedented move and they were well aware of the risks. They stressed that the danger posed by Iran goes beyond its nuclear program and missile development, saying that the IRGC has tried to reshape the Middle East in Iran’s favor for decades.
Special representative for Iran Brian Hook emphasized that “the IRGC has been threatening U.S. troops almost since its inception … and the Middle East cannot be made more stable or peaceful without weakening the IRGC.”
Iranian resistance groups welcomed the administration's decision. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the French-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, branded the designation "an urgent and necessary step to end war and terrorism throughout the region and the world" and called on the European Union to follow America's lead.
"The Revolutionary Guard Corps, which does not even carry Iran in its official name," Rajavi said, "is the main apparatus of repression, the primary driver of war and export of terrorism, and responsible for pursuing nuclear weapons and missile projects. The IRGC also controls the lion’s share of the Iran's economy." She added, "This action, which was long overdue, should now be completed by designating the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)."
Senators like Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have been calling for the State Department to designate the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization for years, and a senior GOP aide told the Washington Examiner that Cruz “is well-known to be planning an even broader set of sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for this Congress that will build on his last effort, in which redundant sanctions for their activities would be layered on.”
