Reported by PMOI/MEK
April 6, 2019 – The United States government will officially be designating the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in Iran as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) this coming Monday, according to a U.S. government official talking to The Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration is gearing for this move that will significantly expand the United States’ maximum pressure campaign against the mullahs in Tehran.
Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has long been calling for the international community to completely end the appeasement approach vis-à-vis the regime in Iran.
On January 11 of this year, Mrs. Rajavi called for the specific IRGC blacklisting as an FTO alongside the referral of Iran’s human rights violations dossier to the United Nations Security Council.
Washington’s recent decision follows months of debates and negotiations, and is expected to be announced on Monday. This designation is considered an unprecedented move, especially taking into notice that the IRGC is a military entity of this regime and responds only directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton strongly support this measure with the objective of imposing further pressure on the IRGC and the regime ruling Iran.
CENTCOM, commanding over U.S. forces across the Middle East and North Africa, is weighing the possibility of issuing a regional warning to its forces as a preventive measure to prepare any possible retaliatory attacks against its troops.
U.S. President Donald Trump, adopting a tough policy vis-à-vis against the regime ruling Iran, strongly supports this initiative. Analysts believe the impact of such a designation will be massive.
The Trump administration has long been focusing on the IRGC and placing this dangerous entity in its crosshairs. The IRGC has become one of the main pillars of the regime in Iran, expanding its influence to the mullahs’ economy, nuclear apparatus and ballistic missile program.
During his tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency, Secretary Pompeo had emphasized on the fact that companies associated to the IRGC have control over around 20 percent of the country’s economy, including important energy branches.
Since its foundation back in 1979, the IRGC has played an active role in domestic crackdown against all protests and uprisings throughout the past 40 years, and expanding the mullahs’ malign influence across the Middle East through terrorist proxy groups. The 1983 Beirut bombings that left over 240 U.S. Marines killed in their barracks was carried out by the Lebanese Hezbollah, a terrorist group sponsored, trained and funded by the IRGC from day one.
The IRGC and its proxies have been behind a series of terror attacks and atrocities throughout the past decades:
-1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina
-1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina
-1996 Khobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia
-The killings of hundreds of American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq
-Funding, training and equipping proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon in the devastating wars that have wreaked havoc across the region
Despite the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department has taken vast measures against the IRGC, the official FTO designation will strongly expand the United States’ ability to take practical measures against this entity, along with its associated companies and individuals.
According to this designation, all entities and individuals will be banned from providing any support or resources, such as financial services, training equipment, specialist advice, arms or transportation equipment, to IRGC-controlled or IRGC officials.
IRGC officials and those engaging with them will be placed under civil and criminal punishment, including legal prosecution.
