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. . . .

Steve Witkoff, the American special envoy leading negotiations with the Islamic Republic, has sent mixed signals about his intentions, some of them recently contradicted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Michael Doran looks at the progress of the talks so far, and explains why he fears that they could result in an even worse version of the 2015 deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA):

This new deal will preserve Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capabilities—centrifuges, scientific expertise, and unmonitored sites—that will facilitate a simple reconstitution in the future. These capabilities are far more potent today than they were in 2015, with Iran’s advances making them easier to reactivate, a significant step back from the JCPOA’s constraints.

In return, President Trump would offer sanctions relief, delivering countless billions of dollars to Iranian coffers. Iran, in the meantime, will benefit from the permanent erasure of JCPOA snapback sanctions, set to expire in October 2025, reducing U.S. leverage further. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps will use the revenues to support its regional proxies, such as Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis, whom it will arm with missiles and drones that will not be restricted by the deal.

Worse still, Israel will not be able to take action to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons:

A unilateral military strike . . . is unlikely without Trump’s backing, as Israel needs U.S. aircraft and missile defenses to counter Iran’s retaliation with drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles—a counterattack Israel cannot fend off alone.

By defanging Iran’s proxies and destroying its defenses, Israel stripped Tehran naked, creating a historic opportunity to end forever the threat of its nuclear weapons program. But Tehran’s weakness also convinced it to enter the kind of negotiations at which it excels. Israel’s battlefield victories, therefore, facilitated a deal that will place Iran’s nuclear program under an undeclared but very real American protective shield.