The head of terrorist designated Iranian IRGC Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, gave a recent speech in which he praised recent attacks on Israel and threatened with more to come. “We have announced that we support all the struggles against Israel and the occupying regime…we ourselves are not closed-minded and we take action wherever necessary.
In the recent period when this criminal regime [Israel] wanted to show its emergence, the Islamic regime announced to them that if the interests of this regime are attacked anywhere in the world, we will answer you wherever we find you. Of course, we know well where you are, an example of which was in Erbil.”
This is a reference to the use of missiles to attack areas around Erbil in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Iran has claimed that it targeted a Mossad facility in northern Iraq.
This shows how the IRGC wants to back Palestinian attacks, as well as use missiles against places in the Gulf and Iraq. He also praised the IRGC for backing the Houthis against Saudi Arabia.
Three years ago, the U.S. correctly added Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Now, as part of the negotiations to restore the nuclear deal, Tehran is forcing the U.S. to consider reversing itself.
The IRGC’s constitutional mandate is “an ideological mission of jihad in God’s way … extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.” Terrorism is a means to that end. The IRGC Quds Force offers manpower, money, and materiel to Iran’s Axis of Resistance and runs point on its management. The IRGC’s other branches, namely the Aerospace Force, Navy, Ground Force, Basij, and the Intelligence Organization all collaborate with the Quds Force in employing terrorism.
Thus, the IRGC across all its branches engages in and supports terrorism. The argument that discrete IRGC branches — like the Quds Force — are more worthy of being designated as FTOs than the others ignores the overlap in mission across the organization. Terrorism is in the IRGC’s DNA.
Source » iranbriefing