Both are Sunni monarchies, the House of Saud and the House of Khalifa. Both are oil and gas economies. Both are geopolitical rivals of Iran. Both have US military presences.
The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization is probably for the purposes of levying sanctions – this is undoubtedly because Iran opposes the US's strategic interests in the region such as its support of (and alliance with) Israel, Turkey‡, and Saudi Arabia.
> Iran’s new military satellite, NOUR 01, most interesting fact may not be that it resembles a college engineering experiment but rather that it may have a connection to a Mexican military payload launched quietly from New Zealand last year.
Arguably the most interesting fact about Noor (this is the spelling that Wikipedia uses† it's Farsi for 'light') is that with the launch Iran became one of a handful of nations that has placed military tech into space with its own launch platform.
“While a number of countries have built satellites, as of 2019, eleven countries have had the capability to send objects into orbit using their own launch vehicles.” (Iran is listed as the 9th such country to do so.)
This implications of this launcher technology should be obvious to anyone.
https://militarybases.com/overseas/bahrain/
Both are Sunni monarchies, the House of Saud and the House of Khalifa. Both are oil and gas economies. Both are geopolitical rivals of Iran. Both have US military presences.
The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization is probably for the purposes of levying sanctions – this is undoubtedly because Iran opposes the US's strategic interests in the region such as its support of (and alliance with) Israel, Turkey‡, and Saudi Arabia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/world/middleeast/trump-ir...
https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/
> Iran’s new military satellite, NOUR 01, most interesting fact may not be that it resembles a college engineering experiment but rather that it may have a connection to a Mexican military payload launched quietly from New Zealand last year.
Arguably the most interesting fact about Noor (this is the spelling that Wikipedia uses† it's Farsi for 'light') is that with the launch Iran became one of a handful of nations that has placed military tech into space with its own launch platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/iran-us-satell...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_first_orbital_laun...
“While a number of countries have built satellites, as of 2019, eleven countries have had the capability to send objects into orbit using their own launch vehicles.” (Iran is listed as the 9th such country to do so.)
This implications of this launcher technology should be obvious to anyone.
‡ This relationship is admittedly strained.
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Space_Agency