https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273421/trump-designates-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-joseph-klein
President Trump has decided to designate the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) to counter Iran’s global campaign of terrorism. “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 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 takes effect on April 15th.
The Iranian regime lives and breathes Islamic extremism, which it seeks to export through its global jihad terrorist network. The IRGC sits at the center of that terrorist network. It provides funding, equipment, training, and logistical support to terrorist proxy groups, including most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The IRGC has American blood on its hands, going as far back as bombings in Beirut at the Marine barracks in 1983 and at the U.S. Embassy annex in 1984. The IRGC also caused casualties to U.S soldiers in Iraq by providing roadside bombs to its proxies. As Special Representative for Iran and Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State Brian Hook explained on Monday, “The IRGC has been threatening American troops almost since its inception. And whenever we impose sanctions on Iran, it’s usually followed by a range of threats. What endangers American troops in the Middle East is an IRGC that operates with impunity and never has its ambitions checked in the Middle East. We’re taking an entirely new approach to this of significant sort of sustained maximum economic pressure to deny the IRGC and the Iranian regime of the revenue that it needs to conduct its foreign policy.”
