Iran’s Terror Corps Cracking the façade of state sovereignty.
By James S. Robbins
One of the defining characteristics of terrorist groups is that they are non-state actors. There are other characteristics — for instance, the use of violence, targeting innocents, seeking political objectives — but they are always outside the context of sovereignty that governs relationships between states, or the much longer Treasury Department list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entities (SDGTs). You’ll find terror groups, guerilla armies, crooked banks, fake charities, corrupt businesses, and very, very bad men — but you won’t find sovereign governments, their armies, their spy agencies, or other instruments of foreign security.