Israel votes today. Here's what you need to know - CNN

On March 31, Netanyahu marked ten uninterrupted years as Israel's Prime Minister, in addition to the three years he led the country in the 1990s, and there is little doubt that he's won a place in the A-list of world leaders; for a man leading a country of fewer than nine million people, his clout and recognition are a remarkable achievement. But at home he has become a highly polarizing figure, inspiring devotion and revulsion in equal measure.

Netanyahu has fought this election in the face of looming indictments for bribery and breach of trust offences. The Attorney General has called him for one final hearing before he decides whether or not to bring charges. Unbowed, Netanyahu has denied the charges and sought to turn these criminal investigations to his advantage, portraying them as a witch-hunt, led by a left-wing media elite.

As CNN discovered when it visited a stronghold of his party Likud, in the desert town of Beersheva several weeks ago, that message resonates strongly with many blue-collar Israelis. The local Likud organizer in the town compared Netanyahu to Moses, saying, "The more they go after him, the stronger he becomes."

Another key component of Netanyahu's campaign has been exploiting his status as a world statesman, with close ties to both the President of the United States and the President of Russia, both of whom have been quite ready to do him favors in recent weeks. On a visit to Washington, Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in defiance of overwhelming international consensus. This on top of earlier Trump decisions to switch the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.

Just days before the election, on a visit to Moscow, Netanyahu was able to personally thank Vladimir Putin for Russia's key role in locating the body of an Israeli soldier who had been missing in Lebanon for nearly 37 years. Even Netanyahu's critics have been forced to acknowledge that the Israeli leader's relationship with Putin has been remarkably fruitful, allowing the Israeli military considerable freedom to operate against Iranian targets in Syria, which Netanyahu always cites as Israel's number one security consideration.

The election was called in December, ostensibly after the government gave up on efforts to get a new military draft law through Parliament. It seems clear that Netanyahu believed the timing was right—sending voters to polls before any indictments were brought against him, and with a message he could sell to the electorate. Speaking to his Likud lawmakers on the day the election was called he said the outgoing government had "outstanding achievements" on which to campaign.

At first facing a diverse array of opponents, Netanyahu saw his challenge crystalize after a dramatic announcement in February, which saw three former army chiefs come together with a former TV news anchor-turned-politician to create the Blue and White party.

The name was simple but significant. Blue and White are the colors of the Israeli flag. The message was equally simple: Blue and White had been created to reclaim the state of Israel from Prime Minister Netanyahu. The man who would lead that campaign and present himself as the anti-Netanyahu candidate was Benny Gantz, a former head of the army, who had held that position under Netanyahu, fighting two wars in Gaza during his tenure.

Gantz's entry into the political arena had been widely anticipated, and, indeed, hoped for in many quarters. Blue and White's polling numbers quickly surged, turning it into a two-horse race. The campaign was hard and personal. After it emerged that Iran had allegedly hacked Gantz's phone, Netanyahu questioned whether he could be trusted to keep the country safe if he couldn't look after his phone.

Netanyahu loyalists also suggested Gantz had abandoned a dying soldier after an attack many years ago in the West Bank town of Nablus. Blue and White rejected the slur, Gantz was also cleared by an IDF inquiry. For his part, the Prime Minister announced he intended to sue Gantz and his key ally, Moshe Ya'alon, after the latter suggested Netanyahu could be guilty of treason in connection with an investigation into military procurement.

As the election entered its final days, most polls showed Gantz with a slim lead over his rival. But the same polls suggested that Netanyahu's route to building a successful coalition would be more straightforward, due to the large number of other right-wing parties projected to win seats. Indeed, the projected success of several hard-right parties could be a key outcome of this election.

Netanyahu's final campaign move involved a series of major TV interviews in which he chose to push the issue of annexation of the West Bank.

If re-elected, Netanyahu told one interviewer, "I am going to apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements. And I don't differentiate between the settlement blocs and the isolated settlements," a reference to three areas of the West Bank where most Israeli settlements are located, known as the blocs, and other, smaller settlements scattered across the territory.

Any such move would be highly controversial. The international community regards the West Bank as occupied Palestinian land and remains committed to the eventual establishment there of a Palestinian state. Gantz called Netanyahu's remarks 'irresponsible' electioneering and said that as Prime Minister he would not make any unilateral moves in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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2019-04-09 04:40:00Z
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Why Iran just listed US military personnel as terrorists - Washington Examiner

Responding to the Trump administration's decision to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, Iran on Tuesday officially listed U.S. military personnel in the Middle East as terrorists.

Iran's hardliner faction intends for that response to deter the U.S. from continuing its pressure campaign against Iran. It wants the U.S. to fear attacks on its forces in the Middle East. But while it is likely that the IRGC will lash out in some fashion, their fury is really a function of fear, not confidence.

The Iranian hardliners know that Trump's action will hamper the IRGC's ability to earn foreign capital. That's because foreign companies, and European ones in particular, will fear doing business in Iran lest they face new U.S. sanctions. Considering that the IRGC controls critical industries in the Iranian economy, such as the telecommunications and energy sectors, Trump's listing is a big problem for the organization.

IRGC commanding officer Mohammad Ali Jafari proved as much Sunday when he warned that “If (the Americans) make such a stupid move, the U.S. Army and American security forces stationed in West Asia will lose their current status of ease and serenity." Trying to placate the hardliners, the more-moderate foreign minister Javad Zarif called for the U.S. military's Central Command to be listed as a terrorist organization. Pro-hardliner media have also hinted at Iranian terrorist reprisals, warning that Trump's action will mean more chaos in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, it's clear the hardliners feel increasingly encircled. This situation is unstable.

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2019-04-08 18:25:00Z
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Hopes For Palestinian State Fade As Israeli Settlements Expand In West Bank - NPR

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Israeli settlers celebrate the Jewish Purim holiday at al-Shuhada street in the divided West Bank town of Hebron, on March 21. Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

When it came down to a final issue for Israeli voters to ponder before Tuesday's election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an extraordinary campaign pledge: If re-elected, he said on Saturday, he would annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Such a move would represent a dramatic, far-right policy change for Israel, staking a permanent claim over lands Palestinians demand for their own state.

Even if it is an election tactic to energize his nationalist base, Netanyahu's annexation pledge is a fitting final chord to a decade of his administration, which began with a reluctant embrace of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ended with the chances of such an outcome dwindling to a new low point.

Since Netanyahu returned to office in 2009, the Jewish settler movement has grown in size and influence. That evolution was apparent last month in the West Bank city of Hebron.

In one of the West Bank's tensest cities — where several hundred Israeli settlers live in guarded enclaves among some 200,000 Palestinians — Israelis dressed up in costume and paraded down the main street. It was the Jewish carnival holiday of Purim, but the settlers were celebrating more than just the religious festivities.

In January, they had successfully lobbied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expel an international observer group, tasked with patrolling Hebron and making Palestinians in the city feel safe after an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshippers there on Purim in 1994.

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Chicago native and Hebron settler Yisrael Zeev is in costume as a pipe-smoking farmer and driving a float in the Purim holiday parade. A red swath from the uniform of an international observer from the recently expelled Temporary International Presence in Hebron flutters on a pole. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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Daniel Estrin/NPR

"We will not allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us," Netanyahu said in a statement about the Temporary International Presence in Hebron.

Settlers accused the organization of causing friction and undermining Israeli rule in the city. But member countries of the group criticized the closure of the mission, saying the observers "promoted conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians" and helped prevent violence.

It was Netanyahu, during his first term in office in 1996, who had allowed for the founding of the unarmed civilian group.

"Apparently they were very temporary, and we are the permanent Israeli presence in Hevron," said Yisrael Zeev, an Israeli settler in the city, calling the city by its Hebrew name.

Zeev drove a float in the parade dressed as an American farmer, with a swath of an observer's uniform flapping from a pole like the flag of a vanquished enemy. Some settlers, including a candidate for national elections, dressed in costume as the expelled international observers.

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Israeli settlers celebrate the Jewish Purim holiday at al-Shuhada street in the divided West Bank town of Hebron. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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Daniel Estrin/NPR

"Everything's going in the right direction," Zeev said.

Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, and has occupied it ever since. Both Israelis and Palestinians have historical ties there.

In 2009, a few months after entering office, Netanyahu gave a speech that has become famous: For the first time, he publicly called for the creation of Palestinian state. He was facing pressure from then-President Obama, who advocated for a Palestinian state alongside Israel: a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But it didn't stop Netanyahu from enlarging Jewish settlements in the occupied land. Apart from a 10-month settlement construction freeze at Obama's request, Netanyahu's government has continued to build homes for Israelis in the West Bank, leaving the map of what could be left for a Palestinian state looking like Swiss cheese.

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is depicted in a poster in Hebron, calling on him to restore Jewish settlements in the northern West Bank that were uprooted by a former prime minister in 2005. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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Daniel Estrin/NPR

About three-quarters of the construction has taken place in settlements deep in the West Bank "that Israel will probably need to evict in the framework of a two-state agreement," said Hagit Ofran of Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group that examines aerial photos to count each settlement unit built. The homes range from spacious U.S. suburb-style homes to multifamily structures to trailers set up on a hill.

"Every year they build at least 2,000 units, which means thousands of new settlers every year in the West Bank," Ofran said. "If we want to have peace, specifically where Netanyahu is building is in places that will be harder to compromise."

The phenomenon of completely new settlements, which Israel previously stopped, was renewed during Netanyahu's tenure. Settlers built a few dozen small outposts without government permission but with Israel largely turning a blind eye, Ofran said.

By the time Netanyahu ran for re-election in 2015, he vocally opposed a Palestinian state. Recently, according to Peace Now figures, Israel has advanced more plans for settlement construction, with little opposition from President Trump.

"The evolution isn't just that [Netanyahu has] gone more to the right. It's that the entire country has gone more to the right, because the Palestinians have killed a lot of their support in Israel," said Israeli political analyst Reuven Hazan.

Most of the Israeli public doesn't believe a peace deal is possible now, he said, with instability in the Middle East and a fractured Palestinian leadership divided between the militant Hamas in Gaza and a weakened Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

"The prospects of a peace partner or a viable peace process is not something that you can sell to the man or woman on the street, nor can you win an election on today," Hazan said.

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Mufid Sharabati, a Palestinian, on his roof in Hebron. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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In the runup to Tuesday's elections, two dozen senior government ministers and lawmakers released video statements endorsing a policy once considered fringe. Instead of negotiating with Palestinians about the West Bank, they're calling for Israel to unilaterally annex parts of it.

Netanyahu resisted that move for years. But last month, following Trump's backing of Israel's annexation of land it captured from Syria in 1967, Netanyahu argued Israel has the right to keep land it seized in war.

In a TV interview on Saturday, just days before the elections, he pledged to "impose Israeli sovereignty" over Jewish settlements if re-elected, including isolated ones deep in the West Bank. In a weekend meeting with settler leaders, Netanyahu said he would do so "immediately" after the vote, said settler leader Yossi Dagan. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem declined comment.

Palestinians see the chances of having their own state slipping away.

In Hebron, Palestinian resident Mufid Sharabati stands on his roof and counts the abandoned homes — about 10 that he can see. He says about 60 Palestinian families left the neighborhood in the last five years because life among Israeli settlers and soldiers has become too difficult.

There have been reports of settler harassment of Palestinians, as well as a recent wave of Palestinian stabbings against soldiers in the city. Sharabati says he must show Israeli soldiers his assigned number, 711, written in Sharpie on his ID cover, to enter the enclave he lives in alongside Israeli settlers. He is part of a civil society campaign called "Dismantle the Ghetto."

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Israelis dressed up in costume as Palestinian Muslim women, for the Jewish Purim holiday, in Hebron. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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Daniel Estrin/NPR

Jewish settlers in Hebron say it is important they live in the city because of its biblical history — as the traditional site of the tomb of Abraham and other ancestors — and because it was home to an old Jewish community that ended when Arabs killed some 69 Hebron Jews in 1929.

Israelis often view Hebron as an extreme example of Israeli-Palestinian friction — the only place in the West Bank where Israeli settlers live under military guard in the heart of a city among Palestinians.

"There is nothing extreme about Hebron," said Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence, a left-wing Israeli veterans group shunned by Netanyahu's government for its work collecting unflattering soldier testimonies about their service in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "Restrictions of movement do you have only in Hebron? All over the West Bank. Settler violence in Hebron? You have all over the West Bank. Military presence only in Hebron? All over the West Bank."

The Palestinian-only part of Hebron is accessible from the settler area through a military checkpoint. Palestinian politics professor Assad Aweiwei stands on the Palestinian side. He's not allowed to cross through.

"This is apartheid politics," he said. "We must change the condition. We must be equal in this land. We can live together."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas failed to deliver on his promise of an independent Palestinian state, and a growing number of Palestinians — including Aweiwei — advocate one shared state with Israelis. Aweiwei says Palestinians would likely become the majority, like apartheid South Africa became a black-majority democracy.

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In the last decade under Netanyahu, Israel has approved more settlement housing in Hebron, and invested in tourism, archaeology and educational tours to normalize the tense city for average Israelis who tend to avoid it. Daniel Estrin/NPR hide caption

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Daniel Estrin/NPR

That would put an end to Israel as a Jewish state.

In the last decade under Netanyahu, Israel has approved more settlement housing in Hebron, and invested in tourism, archaeology and educational tours to normalize the tense city for average Israelis who tend to avoid it — Israelis like Ophir Solonikov.

In late March, he visited Hebron for the first time on his 50 birthday and on the Purim holiday. He's not a Netanyahu voter, not a settler, and not religious. But he sees the West Bank city — where Jewish and Muslim traditions say Abraham is buried — as a part of Israel.

Solonikov thinks Israel should pay Palestinians to leave — a policy promoted by a far-right libertarian candidate he supports, Moshe Feiglin, who is shaping up to be an influential kingmaker in the close election race.

"I dunno," Solonikov said as holiday music blared, "if you do it in good will, it's a good idea."

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2019-04-08 17:53:00Z
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Tripoli's only functional airport hit by air raid as clashes rage - Aljazeera.com

Forces under the command of Libya's renegade General Khalifa Haftar have launched an air raid against the only functioning airport in Tripoli as heavy fighting rages for control of the capital.

Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said services at the Mitiga airport in the east of the city were temporarily suspended after the attack on Monday.

"Passengers have been asked to evacuate the Mitiga airport after Haftar's aircraft raided the runway," he said, citing sources at the facility.

"In the area around the airport, civilians were terrified immediately after this air strike."

No casualties were reported in the airport strike.

The empty Mitiga International Airport after services were temporarily suspended [Mahmud Turkia/AFP]

In a statement, Ghassan Salame, the United Nations' envoy to Libya, condemned the LNA's air raid which targeted the only airport in Tripoli that is available for civilian use.

"As such, this attack constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law which prohibits attacks against civilian infrastructure," he said.

SRSG @GhassanSalame condemns the aerial attack today by LNA aircraft against Meitiga airport. Full statement: https://t.co/TQmRuva70p pic.twitter.com/tE7WgTMEer

— UNSMIL (@UNSMILibya) April 8, 2019

Death toll rises

Haftar last week ordered his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which is allied to a parallel administration in the east, to march on Tripoli, the seat of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) which is protected by an array of militias.

The showdown threatens to further destabilise war-wracked Libya, which splintered into a patchwork of rival power bases following the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

It also risks torpedoing a UN-led national reconciliation conference scheduled for April 14-16 aimed at hammering out a peace deal and set a roadmap for long-delayed elections.

Haftar, who was a general in Gaddafi's army before defecting and spending years living in the United States, casts himself as an enemy of "extremism". His opponents, however, view him as a new authoritarian leader in the mould of Gaddafi.

The heavy fighting has so far displaced 2,800 people, according to the UN.

The GNA's health ministry said at least 27 people, including civilians, have been killed since the start of the offensive, with at least 27 wounded.

According to the LNA's media office, 22 of their troops have been killed.

The World Health Organization also said two doctors were killed trying to "evacuate wounded patients from conflict areas".

Fighting was under way on Monday at Tripoli's old airport [Mahmud Turkia/AFP]

Humanitarian concerns

Maria do Valle Ribeiro, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Libya, said the clashes around Tripoli have prevented emergency services from reaching casualties and civilians, and have damaged electricity lines.

The increased violence is also worsening the situation for people held in migrants detention centres in the Libyan capital, she warned.

Detained refugees and migrants told Al Jazeera they are "terrified" about what will happen to them, with some saying they have been left without food or water and others saying they had been taken from their cells and forced to move weapons.

Meanwhile, fighting was under way on Monday at Tripoli's former international airport on the southern edge of Tripoli.

The disused facility has been abandoned since 2014, after suffering heavy damage during fierce clashes between armed groups.

Activists accuse Haftar's forces of committing human rights violations, with Human Rights Watch saying in a statement on Saturday that LNA fighters "have a well-documented record of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, summary executions of captured fighters, and arbitrary detention".

But the right group's statement also noted that militias affiliated with the GNA and based in western Libya "also have a record of abuses against civilians".

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-04-08 17:45:00Z
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US declares Iran's guard force a 'terrorist organization' - Fox News

FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2016 file photo, Iran's Revolutionary Guard troops march in a military parade marking the 36th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran. The Trump administration is preparing to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps a “foreign terrorist organization” in an unprecedented move that could have widespread implications for U.S. personnel and policy. U.S. Officials say an announcement could come as early as Monday, April 8, 2019, following a months-long escalation in the administration’s rhetoric against Iran. The move would be the first such designation by any U.S. administration of an entire foreign government entity. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced Monday that the U.S. is designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organization," in an effort to increase pressure on the country that could have significant diplomatic implications in the Middle East.

It is the first time that the U.S. has designated a part of another government as a terrorist organization.

The designation imposes sanctions that include freezes on assets the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may have in U.S. jurisdictions and a ban on Americans doing business with it.

"This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft," Trump said in a statement.

Iran has threatened to retaliate for the decision.

The IRGC is a paramilitary organization formed in the wake of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend its clerically overseen government. The force answers only to Iran's supreme leader, operates independently of the regular military and has vast economic interests across the country.

The designation allows the U.S. to deny entry to people found to have provided the Guard with material support or prosecute them for sanctions violations. That could include European and Asian companies and businesspeople who deal with the Guard's many affiliates.

It will also complicate diplomacy. Without exclusions or waivers to the designation, U.S. troops and diplomats could be barred from contact with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who interact with Guard officials or surrogates.

The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have raised concerns about the impact of the designation if the move does not allow contact with foreign officials who may have met with or communicated with Guard personnel. Those concerns have, in part, dissuaded previous administrations from taking the step, which has been considered for more than a decade.

The department currently designates 60 groups, such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State and their various affiliates, Hezbollah and numerous militant Palestinian factions, as "foreign terrorist organizations." But none of them is a state-run military.

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2019-04-08 15:42:00Z
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Trump Designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a Foreign Terrorist Group - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Monday that he was designating a powerful arm of the Iranian military as a foreign terrorist organization, the first time that the United States had named a part of another nation’s government as such a threat and raising the risk of retaliation against American troops and intelligence officers.

The move, which has been debated at the highest levels within the administration, was imposed on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The military unit has carried out operations across the Middle East, trained Arab Shiite militias and taken part in a wide range of businesses in Iran.

The designation “underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the I.R.G.C.”

The action takes effect on April 15 and imposes wide-ranging economic and travel sanctions on the military unit as well as the organizations, companies or individuals that have ties to it — including officials in Iraq, an American ally. Some American officials said the broad terrorist designation potentially covers 11 million members of the Iranian group and affiliated organizations, including the large Basij volunteer militia. In a statement on Monday, the State Department singled out the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard that is led by Qassim Suleimani, as an especially nefarious element.

Top Pentagon and C.I.A. officials oppose the designation, which they argue would allow hard-line Iranian officials to justify deadly operations against Americans overseas, especially Special Operations units and paramilitary units working under the C.I.A.

An interagency lawyers group concluded the designation was too broad, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, pushed for it, said a Trump administration official. The fighting among the senior administration officials intensified after The New York Times disclosed the pending designation last month.

After Mr. Trump’s announcement, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it was designating the United States Central Command, the part of the military that oversees operations in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization.

At the height of the Iraq War in the mid-2000s, Iranian military officials and partners helped train Iraqi Shiite militias to fight American troops. When the Islamic State, a radical Sunni group, took over large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, the Quds Force and other Iranian groups helped train Iraqi Shiite militias to work with the Iraqi Army in retaking the territory. The American military also took part in the campaign, meaning the Americans and Iranians were on the same side of the fight against the Islamic State.

Senior Iraqi officials are opposed to the new designation, as it could impose travel limits and economic sanctions on some lawmakers in the Shiite-led government who have ties to Iranian officials. The additional pressure on Iranian groups also could fuel a popular proposal among Iraqi parliamentarians to limit the movements and actions of 5,000 American troops based in Iraq.

Video

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. would designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. This is the first time that the United States has labeled a part of another nation’s government as a foreign terrorist group.CreditCreditSaul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Generally, Iraqi leaders say they oppose any sanctions because ordinary Iraqis suffered under broad United Nations economic penalties that were imposed after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Monday’s announcement came one day before the Israeli general elections, and the move on the Iranian group could give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a boost in the final hours of his re-election campaign. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly raised the specter of the Iranian threat to Israel and tried to reinforce the notion that his close ties to Mr. Trump strengthen Israeli security.

After Mr. Trump’s morning announcement, Mr. Netanyahu thanked him on Twitter. “Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism,” Mr. Nentayahu wrote.

Last month, in an explicit effort to bolster Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981; the United Nations considers it occupied territory.

Mr. Netanyahu has stressed the dangers posed by Hezbollah, which was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 1997 and has close ties to the Revolutionary Guard. He had asserted recently that Hezbollah was trying to set up a base in the Golan Heights. Last month, after visiting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Mr. Pompeo flew to Lebanon and berated officials for tolerating Hezbollah, even though it is a part of the government in Beirut.

“There is a reason that successive administrations have held off designating the I.R.G.C. as a terrorist organization, and why many of Trump’s own military and intelligence officials are said to be highly opposed to the move: The potential blowback vastly outweighs the benefits,” said Jeffrey Prescott, who worked as a senior Middle East director at the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration.

“This isn’t about taking a tough approach to Iran’s support for terrorism,” Mr. Prescott said Monday. “Rather, it will put our service members in Iraq and throughout the region at additional risk with nothing to show in return.”

The Obama administration considered a series of actions against the Revolutionary Guard before entering into a nuclear deal with Tehran and world powers in 2015. Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from that agreement last year in the start of a series of crackdowns against Iran.

The Revolutionary Guard oversaw the previous Iranian nuclear program, and some of its top officers were sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for their efforts.

The New Yorker reported in 2017 that the Trump Organization had been involved recently in a hotel project in Azerbaijan whose wealthy backers have ties to Iranians linked to the Revolutionary Guard.

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2019-04-08 16:41:15Z
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Trump designates elite Iranian military force as a terrorist organization - CNN

The step "recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft," Trump said in a statement that described the IRGC as "the Iranian government's primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign."

Iran warned this weekend that if the US went ahead with the designation, Tehran would retaliate by designating the US military as a terrorist organization in return.

Iranian parliamentarian Seyed Jawad Sadatinejad told Iran's state-run FARS News on Saturday, "if any stupidity is carried out by the Americans, the Islamic Republic of Iran will practice reciprocity and designate the US military, which has killed many innocent people, to the list of terrorist groups." He said Iran could then treat US troops in the region the same way they treated terror groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, reports FARS News.

The designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a foreign terrorist organization.

It takes effect on April 15, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters at the State Department Monday.

"This historic step will deprive the world's leading state sponsor of terror the financial means to spread misery and death around the world," Pompeo said. He warned that businesses with a presence in Iran or engaged with its companies will have to take extra steps to ensure they are not violating US sanctions.

Brian Hook, a senior policy adviser to Pompeo, said Monday that the IRGC controls "up to half Iran's economy."

"It is absolutely the case that the IRGC amounts to a significant amount of the Iranian economy through pure kleptocracy," Pompeo said. "Businesses and banks around the world now have a clear duty to ensure that companies with which they conduct transactions are not connected to the IRGC in any material way."

Concerns about troops

Senior officials said the designation decision, formally under the State Department's purview, represents the next step in the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran, but the move had met with internal resistance because of concerns about American troops in the Middle East.

Defense officials have told CNN that US troops in Syria and Iraq often find themselves operating in close proximity to members of the IRGC.

Last year, CNN reported that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats cautioned the administration that designating the IRGC could pose dangers to US forces, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Asked about the risks to US troops in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq, Hook told reporters at the State Department that "the decision leading up to this process was a full interagency process that included every member of the NSC. We have taken all measures that are appropriate and prudent in the context of this designation."

He added that "whenever we and other nations call out and expose the regime for what it is, it behaves like a mafia organization increasing its threats. We will not be deterred by their threats."

'Prepared'

Nathan Sales, the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, said the agency would not discuss details of measures being taken to ensure the safety of US personnel.

"I can assure you that we take force protection very, very seriously. And that is why we have run a robust interagency process to make sure that all interested parties are prepared for whatever the Iranian regime might throw at us," he said, speaking alongside Hook Monday.

Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, Pentagon spokeswoman, said Monday that "the Department of Defense is prepared to implement the President and Secretary of State's decision to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization."

"As a matter of policy, we do not discuss adjustments to force protection levels or measures for operational security reasons," Rebarich continued. "As always, DoD has taken prudent measures to ensure the safety of our forces around the world, and maintain our readiness to carry out our missions."

Israeli reaction

The move was warmly welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thanked Trump in a tweet and appeared to take some credit for the move, which comes a day before Israeli elections.

"Thank you, my dear friend, President of the United States Donald Trump, for your decision to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization," Netanyahu wrote. "Thank you for responding to another one of my important requests, that serves our interests and the interests of regional countries."

The IRGC designation follows Trump's March 21 announcement that the US would recognize Israeli control of the Golan Heights, a step that counters United Nations resolutions against land being seized by force. Like the President's decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel's capitol, the Golan decision reversed decades of US policy and countered international norms.

CNN's Ryan Browne, Oren Liebermann and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/iran-us-irgc-designation/index.html

2019-04-08 16:24:00Z
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