"America has used terrorists as a tool in the region while the Guards have fought against them from Iraq to Syria,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, said Tuesday. | Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
Iranian leaders on Tuesday said President Donald Trump made a "vicious move" and a "mistake" by labeling one of their elite military branches a terrorist organization.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps designated by Trump as a terrorist organization, rejected the move and contended Iran would not cower to U.S. pressure.
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“In spite of all the pressure in the past 40 years, Americans have failed to do a damn thing and their vicious move will bear no fruit,” Khamenei said Tuesday, according to Reuters. He also asserted that the designation would backfire on the U.S.
“This mistake will unite Iranians and the guards will grow more popular in Iran and in the region. ... America has used terrorists as a tool in the region while the guards have fought against them from Iraq to Syria,” he said.
Never before has the U.S. designated a nation's official military as a foreign terrorist organization, typically reserving such a designation for nonstate actors.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also denounced the designation, saying in televised address that the U.S. “holds a grudge” against the IRGC, members of which he said have “sacrificed their lives to protect our people, our revolution.”
While U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia applauded the designation, the move put Trump in conflict with his military advisers once again.
Trump’s decision to ratchet up tensions with Tehran ran counter to the advice of Pentagon officials, who warned that designating the IRGC a terrorist group could endanger U.S. troops in the Middle East by exposing them to the risk of retaliation by Iranian-backed militias.
But Iran hard-liners and advocates for the move argue those risks are overstated and that the threat posed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. has charged with supporting military intervention and terrorist attacks and destabilizing the region, is too great.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said the "historic step will deprive the world’s leading state sponsor of terror the financial means to spread misery and death around the world."
"The IRGC masquerades as a legitimate military organization," Pompeo told reporters. "But none of us should be fooled."
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/09/iran-military-terrorist-organization-1262749
2019-04-09 12:07:00Z
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