Trump finally has a plan to take on Iran
After more than nine months in office, President Trump finally has an Iran policy.
Before the opening of the UN General Assembly, Trump approved the long-awaited strategy to deal with Iran, according to administration officials. These officials tell me it will outline a new aggressive approach to countering Iranian threats all over the globe and endeavor to use the leverage of Trump’s threats over the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to spur US allies to begin to address its flaws.
Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hinted the new policy was coming: “The JCPOA represents only a small part of the issues we have to address with Iran.”
The centerpiece of Trump’s Iran strategy will be the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, placing it in the same category as al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Congress mandated this designation over the summer, but allowed Trump to waive the requirement. The designation would be significant.
The Revolutionary Guard controls a large portion of the state’s economy. Iranian economist Bijan Khajehpour estimated the guard was responsible for 15 percent of Iran’s gross domestic product.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization could create problems for foreign companies seeking to invest in Iran. While the Treasury under President Barack Obama issued rules requiring private companies to do due diligence and avoid investment in the Revolutionary Guard, the rules were weakened in the final months of the administration. The new designation will make life harder for those companies.
“It’s important because it means if you are doing business with Iran in key sectors of its economy, you run a significant risk you are doing business with a terrorist organization,” Mark Dubowitz, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me this week.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard is one element of what administration officials have described as a whole-government approach to pushing back against Iran’s regional aggression.
This includes a new policy on countering Iran’s threats to shipping lanes and particularly the threat of anti-ship missiles and the harassment of US Navy vessels. It will include a new emphasis on countering Iranian networks inside Latin America; Iran’s development of ballistic missiles; Iranian human-rights violations; and support for terrorist groups and proxies in the Middle East.
Two US intelligence officials tell me an element that will not be publicized includes a ramping up of operations against the Revolutionary Guard and other Iranian proxies like Hezbollah. Already, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has approved new authorities for US intelligence officers to begin tracking and targeting Iranian agents abroad. These kinds of programs include psychological operations such as placing funds in secret accounts belonging to Iranian officers in order to create the impression such officers are working for foreign powers.
Obama wound many of these programs down in his second term, particularly after the formal negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal began. Pompeo is winding them back up, according to these officials. As The New York Times reported, Pompeo placed the CIA officer who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden in charge of the agency’s Iran operations.
Despite the administration’s crystallizing policy on Iran, US officials tell me there is still no formal plan on how to secure Syrian and Iraqi territory after the Islamic State is driven out. This is particularly important in Syria today as Iran’s proxies and the Revolutionary Guard have already begun to take over some of these areas.
Dubowitz told me that for now he is assessing how comprehensive the new effort against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will be. “I’m looking for measures that will drain the Guard Corps’ resources and have an economic impact on their funding of aggression abroad and patronage networks at home,” he said.
If Dubowitz gets his wish, it’s likely the Iranians themselves will accuse Trump of violating the nuclear deal forged by his predecessor and threaten to pull out. Unlike Obama, Trump would probably consider that a favor.
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