What Happened: 173 of 215 Iranian lawmakers have voted to approve a bill to label all U.S. military forces as terrorist, Fars News Agency reported April 23. The bill includes a provision subjecting those cooperating with the United States in the region to Iranian retaliation.
Why It Matters: The bill is part of a tit-for-tat diplomatic response to the U.S. designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization and builds on similar legislation passed by Iran’s parliament last week.
Background: The White House announced April 8 that the U.S. State Department would designate the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization, which marked the first time the United States declared an entire foreign government body as terrorist. The Iranian Supreme National Security Council quickly responded by saying it would label U.S. Central Command as a terrorist organization.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I wouldn’t expect Iran to do any less in response to our action.
To me, though, it’s like the kid who got pwnd on the playground to yell back, “Oh yeah? Well you MOTHER!!”
Meh. Iran can say all they want. Nothing has changed in their hatred of the USA. It’s just an affirmation of what anyone paying attention already knows. Nor has anything changed in their relative puny-ness because of this vote.
Maybe they should pass a half dozen more votes. That’ll show us.
Obama was a piece of shit, but he (or the wonks in his administration) at least had a basic understanding of geopolitics. The whole reason the Obama administration orchestrated the Iran nuclear deal was so the U.S. could stop relying so heavily on Saudi Arabia as an ally in the Middle East. Trump’s policy has been to cancel all that and lean more heavily into our alliance with Saudi Arabia, which is why you you had the Trump admin denying MBS’ involvement in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi - when MBS was obviously calling the shots. I don’t really care about Khashoggi, I just found the blatant covering for MBS to be odd. Israel sees Iran as its biggest existential threat, which is why it was so opposed to the Iran nuclear deal, while Saudi Arabia has much friendlier relations with Israel.
True - but Saudi Arabia actually brought death to America (or was that Israel ) - either way, that wasn’t Iran. It wasn’t Iraq either but we all know that now.
The White House’s decision not to renew waivers will deal a huge blow to Iran’s oil export industry, but the United States is going to struggle to cut off Tehran’s oil exports altogether. Many tankers carrying Iranian crude routinely shut off transponders to complicate efforts to track the Iranian exports. A lot of money is on the line and the Iranians will be more motivated to succeed than the US will be to stop them.
Transponders or not we can track anything afloat bigger than a bathtub.
You certainly can’t hide something the size of a tanker from our satellites, aircraft, radar, and surface fleet unless it’s parked some place under cover.
… but Obama was the most Anti ■■■■■■■■Israel, pro Muslim president in modern US history so he gets a pass apparently.
Besides, he lifted many of the sanctions and gave our sworn enemy 150bn plus dollars to further their strategic missile capabilty and to fund the IRG who was responsible for about 80% of our casualties in Iran and Afghanistan.
Yep, a real solid understanding of geopolitic resulting in Iran taking control of Iraq and much of Syria, as well as the rise of ISIS and the Arab Spring.
But hey! At least Iran didn’t declare our military to be terrorists under Obama. So I guess we were much better off back then. ( /sarcasm )
Frankly, I WANT the current Iran in complete disagreement with us. There is nothing to “make nice” for. No redeeming qualities. No value added to reach out for.
) - either way, that wasn’t Iran. It wasn’t Iraq either but we all know that now.