Designate IRGC's Quds Force as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Designate IRGC’s Quds Force as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Posted: February 4th, 2019

By Jason Brodsky

Jason M. Brodsky is currently the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), where he manages its research and writing portfolios. He is also a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Iran Program. Previously, he worked as a senior Middle East analyst and an editor at Iran International TV. From 2013-16, he served in a variety of capacities at the Wilson Center, including as special assistant (research/writing) to the Director, President and CEO former Congresswoman Jane Harman; as a research associate in its Middle East Program; and as special advisor to Distinguished Fellow Aaron David Miller. Earlier in his career, Jason served as a fellow at the White House in the Executive Office of the President. His research specialties include leadership dynamics in Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Shiite militias, and U.S. Middle East policy. Jason holds a B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Brandeis University; a J.D., cum laude, from the University of Miami School of Law; and an LL.M., with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Last month, the U.S. Department of State marked the 35^th anniversary of the U.S. designation of Iran as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Tehran is part of an exclusive club—partners in crime with other designees North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. Indeed, since at least 1996, in one country report on Terrorism after another, the State Department has dubbed Iran as the “leading” or “primary” state-sponsor of terrorism.

Yet despite the singular nature of these classifications, secretaries of state, past and present, have lagged behind in sanctioning Tehran-branded Shiite groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). With Iran’s status as the Shiite hegemon in the region, the Trump administration should address this terroristic asymmetry in the new year as it implements its maximum pressure campaign. Its next target should be the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) foreign expeditionary Quds Force.

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