Washington – For the first time in the history, United States of America on Monday has declared Iran’s IRGC as Terrorist Organization. US President Donald Trump said the “unprecedented” move “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.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” Trump said.
United States usually designates guerrilla groups or informal entities as terrorist organization, but this move is out of the norm.
IRGC was actively involved as the death-squads in Syria backing the Lebanon’s Hezbollah to massacre Syrian Muslim population. The terrorist designation for IRGC is meant to strike the power-house of Terrorism that has turned Middle-East into a “playground of death”.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned all banks and business of consequences to dealing with the Revolutionary Guards from now on.
Pompeo said. “Businesses and banks around the world now have a clear duty to ensure that companies with which they conduct financial transactions are not conducted with the IRGC in any material way.”
Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, said the Middle East can not be more stable without weakening the IRGC. “It is the blunt instrument of Iran’s foreign policy,” he added.
One of the senior officials from Trump’s office said the new measure would criminalize contact with the Guards and enable our prosecutors to bring charges to those that bring material support to the IRGC.
“The IRGC is interwoven into the Iranian economy…. The safest course is to stop doing business with the IRGC. If you do business with the IRGC you run the risk of bankrolling terrorism,” said the official.
Another official said the force has “been a principal driver of violence on a vast scale for many decades” in an attempt “to reshape the Middle East in Iran’s favor.”
On the other side, Iran’s parliament has thrown retaliating challenge that American troops will be added in their own terrorism blacklist.
“Even though we believe one should not play along with
America’s extreme acts, the reality is that we must retaliate,” the head of
Iran’s influential national security and foreign policy commission,
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, told ISNA.
