They say old habits die hard.  In the case of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), it is certainly true.

There are two seemingly unrelated events out of Iran in the past few days.  One is the mullahs' renewal of Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa (religious decree) for Salman Rushdie's head, which forced the London-based writer into hiding for fear of his life.  The other was an interview with Anis Al-Naqqash, a well known terrorist imprisoned for his crimes in France for a decade.

Coming at the same time, the two events send a message that Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the most active agent of Iran's state sponsor of terrorism mission, have not seen the Obama administration's vaunted Iran deal as any obstacle to going back to their old barbaric activity.  In fact, they may have tried to hide their true colors from the Obama administration to soften sanctions, but these acts indicate that they will not hesitate to use their old tactics.

Such actions are second nature to the IRGC simply because it was founded on the idea of saving the regime at all costs.  They may be updating their tactics, but under the surface, it is the same work of the same masterminds in Tehran.  They still threaten world peace as they always have – from running a proxy war in Syria to fomenting trouble in Iraq to bankrolling a rebellion in Yemen – and they remain an instrument in the hands of the Iranian regime for suppressing their citizens internally and harboring terrorists from around the region.  This is not a national force, but a terrorist organization, and it in every way deserves a spot on the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.

My more detailed article about this can be read here.