The Trump regime designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist group last week, but then they quietly nullified the decision according to officials who spoke to Rueters.
Current and former government officials say the Trump regime has created numerous exemptions to the designation, rendering it almost pointless.
From Reuters:
The exemptions, granted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and described by a State Department spokesman in response to questions from Reuters, mean officials from countries such as Iraq who may have dealings with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, would not necessarily be denied U.S. visas. [...]
The exceptions to U.S. sanctions would also permit foreign executives who do business in Iran, where the IRGC is a major economic force, as well as humanitarian groups working in regions such as northern Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to do so without fear they will automatically trigger U.S. laws on dealing with a foreign terrorist group.
Reuters also reports that numerous officials from the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all objected to designating the Iranian guard as a terrorist group.
Considering their objections and the State Department's decision to grant exemptions after the fact, one may get the impression that this decision was made on a whim with no plans in place for how to implement or manage it.
Now, let's all appreciate the absurdity of designating a group as a terrorist group and then saying it's okay to do business with them anyway.
Can you even imagine the commentary if the Obama administration did that?