I notice that in liveblogging last night’s debate, Dave Weigel characterized the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment, which urges the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, as “designat[ing] Iran’s army as a ‘terrorist organization.'” I imagine that, given the hysteria over Lieberman-Kyl in the left half of the blogosphere, this might now be a common misconception. In fact, the Revolutionary Guards are entirely separate from and parallel to the regular Iranian military, just as the Waffen-SS was separate from the Wehrmacht. (One difference: Unlike the SS, the Revolutionary Guards have their own air force and navy.) It’s the Revolutionary Guards who command the Quds Force, who in turn train and arm Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups.
