Tehran
Warning the U.S.: Iranian leaders warned of open conflict with the U.S. if the Trump administration classified the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. “Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive, and crushing, and the U.S. should bear all its consequences,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi. As part of a new, tough strategy on Iran, Trump is expected to stamp the Revolutionary Guard with the designation at the same time that he “decertifies” a 2015 international deal to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program. The Revolutionary Guard controls major business interests in Iran and supports terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas; its troops have also been deployed to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Many of its members and linked groups are already under U.S. sanctions.