BICOM

US President Donald Trump is expected to announce this week whether or not he will certify to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. Officials in the administration have suggested that he will unveil a new Iran strategy with a range of measures to tackle Iran’s activity in the region.

US legislation requires the President to certify to Congress every 90 days whether or not Iran is implementing the nuclear agreement. The next deadline is this Sunday 15 October. US media reports last week said that President Trump plans not to certify that Iran is in compliance with the agreement but on Friday the White House said President Trump would announce a new US response to Iran’s missile tests, support for “terrorism” and cyber operations.

There have also been reports that Congress could impose new targeted sanctions against entities involved in the Iranian ballistic missile programme, destabilising activities in the region, and support for Iranian-backed terrorism.

Another option being considered by the US administration is to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group in US law. The US has already put the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign espionage and paramilitary wing, and individuals and entities associated with the IRGC on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

On Sunday, IRGC chief Mohammad Ali Jafari responded to the reports by saying: “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 range of Iran’s missiles.”

Speaking on the looming IRGC terrorist designation, Jafair said that the IRGC “will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world [and] particularly in the Middle East”.

Trump has been an outspoken critic of the nuclear agreement. In July he said, “If it was up to me, I should have had [Iran] noncompliant 180 days ago.” He added that he would be ‘surprised’ if Iran were to be in compliance at the next certification deadline in October.

Although Trump waived nuclear-related sanctions as required by the nuclear agreement in September, he has said that Iran is violating the spirit of the agreement by continuing to carry out ballistic missile tests that violate UN Security Council resolutions.