News Analysis |
After the news of U.S ambitions to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as terrorist organization emerged in the international media a couple of days back, Iran has responded saying that it would declare U.S forces as terrorists to reciprocate the move.
While the Iranian parliamentarian equivocally said that the United States would regret taking such as appropriate and idiotic decision, Foreign Minister went to specifically state that the U.S is just facilitating the Netanyahu regime’s aim of limiting the strength of Revolutionary Guards.
The United States walked out of Nuclear Deal because Iran was continuing with its missile development program and spreading the asymmetrical warfare against Israel using favorable terrain of Syria and Lebanon.
“#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag the US into a quagmire on his behalf,” Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account. “@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster.”
#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO designation of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf.@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster. pic.twitter.com/i4bcfgxybT
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 7, 2019
Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources within the administration that the U.S government is going to designate the influential and powerful faction of the Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guards, as a terrorist organization. However, it is uncertain as to what lied ahead of such moves since IRGC is already heavily sanctioned and so is the state of Iran for supporting terrorists.
Read more: US to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terrorist group: WSJ
U.S President Donald Trump has not simply stopped at walking out of the nuclear deal with Iran but has continued to mount pressure on the regime since then via a fresh round of sanctions and now with these threats.
An Unchartered Territory
There has never been precedence where armed forces of a country have been declared as terrorists even though the U.S has actively gone in pursuit of forces which it thought were committing human rights violations such as Iraq or Libya. And the net effect of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist is going to be nominal in nature as the country is already subjected to crumbling economic sanctions.
But if it does happen, and Iran reciprocates, it would create a norm where even the armed forces of sovereign countries could be tagged as terrorists. Experts believe that first state at the dispense of such actions in the United States itself as the countries which are U.S rivals might even declare the U.S forces as terrorists.
Pentagon has expressed the apprehension that it might compromise the security of U.S troops in the region as Iran might go to extra lengths while responding to the move.
Donald Trump has come down hard on the Iranian regime, due to the common goal of Israeli and Saudi lobby in Washington, and it wants the pressure to keep mounting until the goal is reached, which is still unclear. The United States walked out of Nuclear Deal because Iran was continuing with its missile development program and spreading the asymmetrical warfare against Israel using favorable terrain of Syria and Lebanon.
But it has not given a roadmap so far as to how Iran could come to terms with the United States regarding the “concerns” it shares. Neither has been an effort on part of Trump administration to initiate a round of negotiations of its own which hints at the underlying prospects of regime change in Iran propagated by people like U.S National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Options for Iran
Pentagon has expressed the apprehension that it might compromise the security of U.S troops in the region as Iran might go to extra lengths while responding to the move. However, it is quite unlikely as substantially it is going to hurt Iran not any more than it is already suffering.
Read more: Iran nuclear deal: from US walkout to fresh sanctions
And if Iran has not gone ballistic until now, even after threatening to choke the Strait of Hormuz, it is highly unlikely to go for that option now. Though the idea might be to push Iran to such an extent where it responds via desperate measures and eventually it could be used a mean to forcefully change the regime, as internally engineered attempts have been failing over the years.