Last week, the U.S. government officially designated Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—the paramilitary organization responsible for the bulk of the regime’s evildoing at home and abroad—as a terrorist organization. The designation imposes sanctions on the IRGC, but, argue Bradley Bowman and Andrew Gabel, Washington has at its disposal additional economic measures it can use against the group, and ample reason to use them:

According to new information released last week by the administration, Iran was responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, a significant percentage of U.S. casualties in the conflict. That statistic does not include the thousands of Americans injured in Iraq due to the actions of Tehran and its proxies. . . . The IRGC and its [expeditionary wing], the Quds Force, played a pivotal role in supporting the Shiite militia proxies that employed Iranian weapons [to attack U.S. troops and Iraqis]. . . .

Tehran’s effort to kill American troops in Iraq during that period was part of a longstanding campaign targeting the U.S. military. Indeed, Iran played an important role in the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing that killed 241 American service members, and it helped plan and finance the 1996 Khobar Towers truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed nineteen U.S. airmen. . . . Tehran has also served as an active collaborator with al-Qaeda—harboring, training, and supporting al-Qaeda operatives for years.

It is past time to impose and to enforce maximally the toughest possible sanctions against the sectors of the Iranian economy that touch the IRGC. The designation of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization provides an opportunity to hold foreign persons criminally liable for supporting the IRGC’s terrorism and actions against our troops. The IRGC controls an expansive criminal, financial, and industrial empire accounting for between 20 to 40 percent of the Iranian gross domestic product by most estimates. . . .

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.