FILE IMAGE: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
The chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said October 8 the US should move its military bases farther from Iran’s borders if it imposes new sanctions against Tehran, Reuters reports.
“As we’ve announced in the past, if America’s new law for sanctions is passed, this country will have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000 km (1,250 mile) range of Iran’s missiles,” Guards’ commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said.
Jafari also warned the United States against designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. “If the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world particularly in the Middle East,” he said.
“We are hopeful that the United States does not make this strategic mistake,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi. “If they do, Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive and crushing and the United States should bear all its consequences.”
The warning came after the White House said on October 6 that President Donald Trump would announce new US responses to Iran’s missile tests, support for “terrorism” and cyber operations as part of his new Iran strategy. Particularly, the US President may plan to abandon the 2015 nuclear accord that prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but also lifted some sanctions, allowing Iran to trade on international markets and sell oil.
Despite the nuclear deal, Washington still maintains its own more limited sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and over accusations Tehran supports terrorism.
Iran says it is developing missiles solely for defensive purposes and denies involvement in terrorism.
