Trump's New Policy Will Focus on Iran's Meddlers

(Bloomberg View) -- After more than nine months in office, President Donald Trump finally has an Iran policy.

Last month before the opening of the U.N. 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 U.S. allies to begin to address its flaws.

On Wednesday at a press conference to dispel news reports that he considered quitting his post over the summer, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hinted the new policy was coming. Speaking of the Iran nuclear agreement, he said, "the JCPOA represents only a small part of the issues we have to address with Iran."

The centerpiece of Trump's new 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 in Iran controls a large portion of the state's economy. Iranian economist and businessman Bijan Khajehpour, in an article in al-Monitor in August, estimated that the guard was responsible for 15 percent of Iran's gross domestic product. (He also acknowledged that it's difficult to arrive at a precise statistic because there are no official statistics on the web of companies it controls and its stake in enterprises with state and semi-state entities in Iran's economy.)

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization could create problems for foreign companies seeking to invest in Iran. While the Treasury Department 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, the executive director 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 in the Persian Gulf and particularly the threat of anti-ship missiles and the harassment of U.S. 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 against its own citizens; and support for terrorist groups and proxies in the Middle East.

Two U.S. intelligence officials tell me that an element of the strategy that will not be publicized includes a ramping up of intelligence operations against the Revolutionary Guard and other Iranian proxies like Hezbollah in the Middle East. Already, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has approved new authorities for U.S. 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 in 2013. Pompeo is winding them back up, according to these officials. As the New York Times reported in June, Pompeo has placed the CIA officer who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden, nicknamed the "dark prince," in charge of the agency's Iran operations.

Despite the administration's crystallizing policy on Iran, U.S. 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 as the war against the Islamic State has turned. In Iraq, militias loyal to the Revolutionary Guard still play a key part in the state's war against the terrorist group. Since 2014, the U.S. has at times provided air support in operations that include these militias.

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's 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.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net.

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