{"id":7819,"date":"2017-07-29T00:54:23","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T05:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=7819"},"modified":"2017-07-29T00:54:23","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T05:54:23","slug":"how-trump-can-show-iran-that-america-will-not-be-intimidated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/2017\/07\/29\/how-trump-can-show-iran-that-america-will-not-be-intimidated\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump can show Iran that America will not be intimidated"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a9 Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hill opinion: 07\/28\/2017<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, Iranian officials threatened\u00a0to attack\u00a0American\u00a0bases\u00a0in the Middle East if the U.S.\u00a0imposed\u00a0terrorism sanctions\u00a0on\u00a0the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).\u00a0On Thursday, the Senate voted<\/a> overwhelmingly to send a bill to the president that would require the Trump administration to so\u00a0sanction the IRGC.\u00a0Neither Congress nor the administration should let\u00a0the threat of violence deter them from holding the Revolutionary Guard accountable.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has expressed interest in designating<\/a> the IRGC, but held back due to internal disagreements<\/a>. The George W. Bush administration previously settled on designating<\/a> only the IRGC\u2019s elite Quds Force for terrorism and the entire IRGC for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The entire Revolutionary Guard has since been designated under two Obama administration orders, one for human rights abuses<\/a> and the other for information technology rights abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate legislation\u00a0<\/a>approved last month\u00a0by a\u00a0vote\u00a0<\/a>of 98-2 requires\u00a0the administration to determine\u00a0that\u00a0the IRGC is a terrorist organization and apply\u00a0the punishments found in a 2001\u00a0executive order<\/a>, which could prohibit commercial contact with the Revolutionary Guard or its affiliates.<\/p>\n

Early wins by Tehran over Washington could put the U.S. government on poor footing to push back against Iran across the Middle East. Timidity could also impede any future effort to amend the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal. In the past, Iran has threatened<\/a> to attack U.S. military installations in order to deter<\/a> potential strikes on Iranian territory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet, the most recent threats clearly targeted those debating the IRGC designation. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, an IRGC veteran and chief of Iran\u2019s armed forces general staff, exclaimed<\/a>, \u201cPutting the IRGC in one single class with the terrorist groups and imposing similar sanctions against the IRGC poses a major risk to the U.S., its bases and forces deployed in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments were echoed days later by top IRGC commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad-Ali Aziz Jafari, who said<\/a>, \u201cIf the U.S. wants to pursue imposing sanctions on the IRGC and defense issues, it should first close its regional military bases in a radius of 1,000 kilometers away from Iran.\u201d Implicit in his statement is that Iran would use its missile force<\/a> \u2014 which according to U.S. officials is the region\u2019s largest<\/a> \u2014 to retaliate against American bases for terrorism sanctions against the IRGC.<\/p>\n

Yet, Tehran has every reason to back down from carrying out a missile strike. An overt attack by the Islamic Republic against an American facility \u2014 military or diplomatic \u2014 would beget an escalation spiral ending in more damage done to the Islamic Republic than to Washington or its allies. Iranian leaders know that the U.S. retains escalation dominance. In response to an attack, the U.S. can destroy any Iranian target. In 1988, the Pentagon quickly smashed<\/a> most of the Iranian Navy.<\/p>\n

Rather, Iran may fall back on its tried and true methods of proxy attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East and terrorism against American embassies. Unfortunately, the clerical regime has done both in the past without provoking escalation, or even much of a response at all. One need only to recall the lackluster American response to embassy bombings<\/a> in Beirut and Kuwait during the 1980s, the Khobar Towers bombing<\/a> in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and IRGC-supported attacks<\/a> against U.S. troops in Iraq after 2003.<\/p>\n

To preempt this kind of Iranian response, the Pentagon should state clearly that the U.S. will not permit its personnel to be harassed by Iran\u2019s conventional or unconventional forces. The White House should make explicit that any attack by an Iranian-linked force on Americans will be dealt with harshly.<\/p>\n

While Tehran will want to prove that it, too, can\u2019t be intimidated, recent history says otherwise. A mere shift in tone from the new administration already appears to have affected Iran\u2019s calculus. While Iran has continued missile<\/a> and space launch vehicle<\/a> testing, it has not launched another nuclear capable, medium-range ballistic missile since being put \u201con notice<\/a>\u201d by the White House in February. In Syria, Iranian-backed forces have not targeted the U.S. military outright, even though the U.S. twice downed Iranian-made Shahed-129<\/a> drones.<\/p>\n

Despite ongoing harassment in the Persian Gulf, according to reports<\/a>, U.S. officials believe that there has been a decrease in the amount of \u201cunprofessional encounters\u201d between U.S. and Iranian vessels when compared to the same time last year. Lastly, despite persistent Iranian grumbling<\/a> about a perceived lack of American compliance with the JCPOA, Iranian officials have apparently backed down<\/a> from using the \u201cdispute resolution mechanism\u201d in the accord.<\/p>\n

By increasing sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard, Washington can signal a different Iran policy. A blanket designation would facilitate targeting numerous entities owned or controlled by the guards\u2019 business fronts. The administration need not worry about American compliance with the JCPOA. Even the Obama administration fully conceded<\/a> that sanctions on non-nuclear activities are consistent with the deal.<\/p>\n

The Revolutionary Guard commanders\u2019 angry response to potential new sanctions shows how painful a terrorism designation might be. While the Trump administration should take every precaution to defend American personnel and security architecture in the region, it must not allow Tehran to intimidate the United States. A weak response to Iranian threats could have lasting repercussions. Issuing a terrorist designation against the overlords of the Islamic Republic\u2019s foreign adventures is long overdue.<\/p>\n

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior Iran analyst at the <\/em>Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/em><\/a>. He frequently briefs Washington audiences on a host of Iran-related issues and has testified before the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hill opinion: 07\/28\/2017 Last week, Iranian officials threatened\u00a0to attack\u00a0American\u00a0bases\u00a0in the Middle East if the U.S.\u00a0imposed\u00a0terrorism sanctions\u00a0on\u00a0the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).\u00a0On Thursday, the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7822,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions\/7822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}