Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Offers Clarity on Iran’s Terrorist Aims

Finally a U.S. president is willing to ratchet up the pressure on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

April 8, 2019 at 7:45 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Members of a terrorist organization, according to the U.S.
Photographer: AY-COLLECTION/SIPA/SPPFR

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For more than 30 years, successive U.S. administrations have called Iran what it is: a state sponsor of terrorism. Leaders of its military and intelligence agencies have been sanctioned, while the terror groups Iran supports have faced military action as well as sanctions.

Until now, however, the main organization responsible for founding, funding and training many of these groups has not been placed in the same category as its clients like Hezbollah. On Monday, President Donald Trump upended that precedent and designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the IRGC, as a foreign terrorist organization.