Iran's Republican Guard - Connecting the Dots on the Path to War

This recent announcement from the United States Department of State:

...could be a harbinger of things to come for the relationship between Washington and Iran.

Let's take a look at where the designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization or FTO could lead.  

On October 13th, 2017, President Donald Trump gave a speech outlining his administration's Iran strategy.  Here are some key quotes which give us a sense of how the current administration views Iran outside of its nuclear aspirations and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA:

"Iran is under the control of a fanatical regime that seized power in 1979 and forced a proud people to submit to its extremist rule. This radical regime has raided the wealth of one of the world’s oldest and most vibrant nations, and spread death, destruction, and chaos all around the globe.

Beginning in 1979, agents of the Iranian regime illegally seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held more than 60 Americans hostage during the 444 days of the crisis. The Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah twice bombed our embassy in Lebanon — once in 1983 and again in 1984. Another Iranian-supported bombing killed 241 Americans — service members they were, in their barracks in Beirut in 1983.

In 1996, the regime directed another bombing of American military housing in Saudi Arabia, murdering 19 Americans in cold blood.

Iranian proxies provided training to operatives who were later involved in al Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassies in Kenya, Tanzania, and two years later, killing 224 people, and wounding more than 4,000 others.

The regime harbored high-level terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, including Osama bin Laden’s son. In Iraq and Afghanistan, groups supported by Iran have killed hundreds of American military personnel." (my bold)

The last sentence in the excerpt from Trump's remarks is key; Washington has declared that Iran is, at the very least, indirectly responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001.

In light of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, on September 18, 2001, the United States Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution 23 also known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force or AUMF.  Here is the entire text of the Joint Resolution:

The resolution was passed by a yea-nay vote of 98 - 0 in the Senate with two members not voting as shown here:

In the House where the bill was known as House Joint Resolution 64, the bill passed 420 - 1 as shown here:

Only Barbara Jean Lee (D - Cal 13) voted against the broad powers that House J.R. 64 gave to the President of the United States.  This is the danger of the AUMF; Washington can justify any war in any nation simply by invoking the threat of terror against the homeland (real or perceived) and a link to the attacks of 9/11 (real or perceived).  What is also concerning is that there is no expiry date to the AUMF.

The implementation of the AUMF granted the president to authority to;

"...use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbour such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future attacks of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." (my bold)

Now you can see the potential game plan that the Trump Administration is using to justify a war against Iran.  The linking of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp to the harbouring of high-level terrorists, including Osama bin Laden's son, after the September 2001 attack is sufficient to allow Donald Trump to declare war against Iran. 

Let's close with this tweet from the Trump Administration's "Warrior in Chief":

Now that the dots have been connected between Iran's Republican Guard and the events of September 11, 2001, I think that we can deduce where this is heading.