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| Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari |
It is expected that President Donald Trump will add Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the list of designated terrorist organizations later this week. The special operations branch of the IRGC, known as the Qods Force ("Jerusalem Force"), has been so designated since 2007.
The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization will come either at the same time or close to the same time that the President declines to certify Iran in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly called the Iran nuclear deal. Current U.S. law requires the President to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is adhering to the requirements of the agreement.
The IRGC was formed shortly after the 1979 Revolution as a counterweight to the Iranian regular armed forces, who were viewed with distrust by the new leadership, wary of the military's previous loyalty to former Shah Reza Pahlavi.
It has since become part of the overall Iranian armed forces structure - some would say the premier organization of the armed forces. They are also responsible for internal security, protecting the revolution and the Islamic Republic system of government (vilayet-e faqih).
The IRGC currently comprises about 125,000 personnel organized into ground, aerospace, and naval forces, plus a 90,000-strong basij paramilitary militia. Its naval force is the primary force tasked with the control of the Persian Gulf, particularly the Strait of Hormuz.
Portions of the transit lanes of the narrow strait are within Iranian territorial waters, but are open to "innocent passage" under international law. IRGC naval units routinely harass U.S. Navy ships transiting the waters to and from the Persian Gulf. The United States Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Manama, Bahrain.
My history with the IRGC goes back to 1982. I was serving as a Middle East operations officer attached to an element of the National Security Agency. We were concerned about the increasing Iranian presence in Lebanon - that presence was facilitated by the Syrian government of Hafiz al-Asad, father of current president Bashar.
It was not long before we discovered that the Iranian operatives in the Levant were members of the IRGC, having set up the IRGC-SL (Syria and Lebanon contingent), one of the founding elements of the special operations unit that later became known as the Qods Force.
This contingent was responsible for the creation of a unified group of Shi'a militias in southern Lebanon and the Biqa' Valley in 1982 - this group eventually came to be known as Hizballah (the Party of God). It was this group that embarked on a series of terrorist acts in the name of "the Resistance" (al-muqawamah). The IRGC and Hizballah kept all of us busy in the 1980s. I continued to be tasked with operations against the IRGC for virtually the remainder of my career.
Some of the actions conducted by the IRGC or its Lebanese proxies that have taken up my time (this is not an inclusive list):
- 1983 / bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut International Airport
- 1984 / kidnapping, torture and murder of CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley
- 1987 / mine attack by the IRGC ship Iran Ajr in the Persian Gulf against the reflagged Kuwaiti tanker Bridgeton
- 1988 / mine attack in the Persian Gulf against the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58). This led to the retaliatory Operation Praying Mantis in which U.S. forces inflicted severe damage on the Iranian Navy and facilities in the Gulf. I was pleased to be asked to be one of the officers who selected the targets for the initial attacks.
- 1988 / kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. Marine Colonel Rich Higgins, serving in Lebanon with the United Nations
- 1992 / the IRGC began its support for the Palestinian group HAMAS (acronym for the Arabic words Islamic Resistance Movement) after Israeli expulsions to Lebanon
- 1994 / Hizballah, on IRGC orders, bombed the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina building in Buenos Aires
- 1996 / bombing of a U.S. Air Force housing facility at Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia
- 2006 / the IRGC provided the thousands of missile and rockets used by Hizballah to bombard the Israeli civilian population of northern Israel
- 2011 / Iran was already present in Syria at the outbreak of demonstrations that led to the civil war and came to Bashar al-Asad's assistance
- 2013 / had not IRGC troops and Hizballah fighters, along with other Iranian and Iraqi Shi'a militias intervened, the regime of Bashar al-Asad would have been removed
In addition to the 2007 designation of the Qods Force as a terrorist group, other IRGC officials were also sanctioned. President Trump's expected action will designate the organization as a whole. I have to agree with him. I would hate to have to tell Lieutenant Colonel Robin Higgins, USMC (Retired) - a colleague as we worked these issues, and yes, the widow of Colonel Rich Higgins - that we do not regard these thugs as terrorists.
So now I hear the IRGC commander and his spokesman spout drivel such as, "We are hopeful that the United States does not make this strategic mistake. If they do, Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive and crushing and the United States should bear all its consequences. If the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world."
You may not like being called out for the terrorist entity you are, but do you really want to get into an armed confrontation with the United States?
You are terrorists - don't be foolish terrorists.
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