Why Did Trump Place Sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?

After a contentious interagency debate, the United States government has designated the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and many of their affiliates and subordinate organizations as terrorist organizations. By the New York Times’ estimate, this enables the U.S. to impose economic and travel restrictions on up to eleven million people, including some Iraqis. To get an idea of how broad this declaration is, the IRGC only has an estimated 125,000 military personnel. The paramilitary “police force” known as Basij is technically under their command, and they have approximately 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The elite Quds Force, the likely element responsible for any acts of foreign state-sponsored terrorism, has no more than 20,000 members. The reason this could directly impact as many as 11 million people is that the IRGC is much more than a military organization. It’s an economic powerhouse, controlling more than a hundred companies and billions in contracts.

As far back as 2007, during the administration of George W. Bush, the U.S. has contemplated designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization, but it is only in the wake of the Saudi Arabian government’s brutal assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their Turkish consulate that the effort gained steam. Last October, when international opprobrium was at its height, the Kingdom (and its satellite, Bahrain) made an effort to distract the world from their misdeed. When they declared the IRGC as a terrorist organization, Iran pointed out the obvious:

“Saudi Arabia is in a quagmire it cannot easily come out of,” Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Brigadier-General Esmail Kowsari, the Revolutionary Guards’ deputy security chief, as saying on Tuesday.

“Saudi rulers are trying to distract the world and the region from the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, in their consulate in Turkey,” he added.

The New York Times doesn’t mention Jared Kushner as having any potential role in this decision despite his close relationship to Saudi Arabia’s leader, Mohammed Bin Salman. Instead, they place responsibility for the decision on the administration’s two most notorious anti-Iran hardliners: … Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser.

More From The New York Times (subscription required):