So, a nation of 80 million is ‘terrorist?!’

Carter lost the presidential election, and a second term in office, that same year because he couldn’t resolve the issue of the American hostages in Tehran. A quarter of a century later, that same Carter became an advocate of unconditional negotiations with Iran. Whereas he hosted Arab and Israeli officials at Camp David for an accord of the same name, a quarter of a century later, he not only opposed the designation of Hamas as “terrorist,” he also initiated negotiations with the Palestinian resistance group and acknowledged that it would be futile to try to leave out Hamas and Syria from Middle East peace talks.

This was the same Carter who, during the hostage crisis, had called Iran a terrorist country and to whom Imam Khomeini had addressed these remarks in a CBS interview, “Is a nation of 35 million terrorist?!... Is your discernment of political matters like that, too?! Rest assured that our nation is Muslim, and Muslim is not terrorist, and our nation will treat these [Americans at the US embassy] with the utmost mercy.”

What incumbent US President Donald Trump did with his decision... [about the IRGC the other day] is he repeated the allegations that all of Carter’s successors had made. This time, though, Trump was blacklisting an official and popular force of another country. It was the repetition of the mistake that the US made in 1997 with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, calling a popular resistance group working against Zionist occupation “terrorist,” the same force that is today well received by the majority of the Lebanese people and that has seats in the Lebanese parliament as an influential political force.

How can Lebanon’s Hezbollah be a terrorist group but Israel’s military, intelligence, and security organizations — which officially assassinate Palestinian activists, commit war crimes in their attacks, and have a long, bleak record of killing unguarded civilians — not be one?! What credibility does the US blacklist essentially have when both Daesh’s name and the name of the biggest force fighting it, namely the IRGC, appear on it?! What ridiculous list is this when it records al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Daesh — groups that thrived because of the US’s own political, military, and logistical support...? What outrageous list is this when the advocates of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO) outfit, who are honored to give speeches at the group’s gatherings, pick who should be on it and who should not?! Isn’t the increasing popularity of Hezbollah among the people of Lebanon and the region the best testament to the list’s invalidity? Isn’t the fact that even Carter refuses to view Hamas as “terrorist” a sign that US political groups, too, have disregard for such a mischievous play on the concept of “fighting terrorism?!”

When they blacklist the IRGC, the US’s current statesmen display their highest understanding of Iran! The IRGC was born with the Islamic Revolution and fought alongside the Islamic Republic’s Army to defend Iran’s territory and Iranian lives during the Iraqi war on Iran. In later years, it fought Saddam Hussein’s American-backed Ba’ath party, as well as the American-made al-Qaeda and Daesh. The IRGC has not a military but a popular nature.

Major General Qassem Soleimani is among the several most popular figures in Iran, as testified to by all methodical and even non-governmental opinion polls. That popularity has been acknowledged many times over by US officials and media.

Was it not the IRGC whom the Americans implored to set up Baghdad’s Green Zone? Was it not the IRGC that went to the Northern Alliance’s aid to capture Kabul after 9/11 and when US commanders were shivering [with powerlessness]?

History is repeating itself.

Saudi Arabia’s and the Emirates’ hired armies are shivering at the gates of Riyadh, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, but Iran’s rapid action task force for peace is hard at excellent work in the region.

The White House’s move against the IRGC was not just against that force; it was against the entire Iranian nation. To borrow Imam Khomeini’s words, one can wonder, “Is a nation of 80 million terrorist?!”