• President Donald Trump has announced the United States is designating Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a terrorist organisation.
• The move could have widespread implications for U.S. personnel and policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. This will mark the first such designation by any American administration of an entire foreign government entity.

About Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

• The IRGC, Iran's most powerful security organisation, was set up to protect the country's Shia clerical ruling system after its 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the Western-allied secular monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and led to the formation of the Islamic Republic.
• The force oversees Iran's ballistic missiles and nuclear programmes, and answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is estimated to have 125,000 personnel, comprised of army, navy and air units.
• After the 1980s' Iran-Iraq war, the IRGC also became heavily involved in reconstruction and has expanded its economic interests to include a vast network of businesses, ranging from oil and gas projects to construction and telecommunication.
• The State Department currently designates more than 60 organisations, including as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), Hezbollah and numerous armed Palestinian groups, as "foreign terrorist organisations". 

Analysis:

• The designation allows the US to deny entry to people found to have provided the IRGC with material support or prosecute them for sanctions violations. That could include European and Asian companies and businesspeople who deal with the IRGC's many affiliates.
• It also may complicate diplomacy. Without exclusions or waivers to the designation, US troops and diplomats could be barred from contact with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who interact with IRGC officials or surrogates.
• The Pentagon and US intelligence agencies have raised concerns about what effect the designation will have if the move does not allow contact with foreign officials who might have met or communicated with IRGC personnel.
• Those concerns have in part dissuaded previous administrations from taking the step, which has been considered for more than a decade.