IRGC Warns US of Risks of Implementing CAATSA

Speaking at a high-profile IRGC session on Sunday, IRGC Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari cautioned the US government of the dire consequences of imposing new sanction against Iran.

Carrying out CAATSA would be tantamount to US unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), he said.

As mentioned before, the commander added, if the US begins to implement the new anti-Iran sanctions act, it will have to move its regional bases out of reach of the Iranian missiles, namely out of a 2,000-km radius.

The general also noted that if the speculations about the US administration’s stupid decision to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization are true, the IRGC will in turn treat the US Army around the world, particularly in the Middle East, as the Daesh (ISIL) forces.

Washington should know that Iran will use the opportunity provided by Donald Trump Administration’s lunatic conduct of the JCPOA to boost its missile program as well as it regional and conventional defense plans, he added.

Major General Jafari finally warned that any fresh US sanctions on Iran would ruin any chance of interaction forever, saying the new sanctions, together with the US behavior towards the JCPOA, lay bare that the US employs negotiations as a tool to press ahead with pressures and hostility, not to interact or solve the issues.

In early August, Donald Trump signed into law one of the most wide-ranging sanctions measures of the last five years, known as CAATSA, which enhances three separate sanctions programs targeting Iran, Russia and North Korea.

CAATSA expands US sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, and enhances the legal basis for existing sanctions targeting the IRGC. It would also establish an additional US legal basis for sanctions targeting IRGC on the allegations of support for terrorism.

In mid-September, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei lambasted the US for violating the JCPOA, warning that any "wrong move” concerning the nuclear deal would draw reaction from Iran.

Iran and the Group 5+1 reached the 159-page nuclear agreement in July 2015 and started to implement it in January 2016.

Since the historic deal was signed in Vienna, the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.

The US has even imposed many fresh sanctions against Iran, in flagrant defiance of the JCPOA.