Moving one step closer to a confrontation with Iran

August 15, 2007

It’s not just unusual for the United States to designate a branch of a foreign military a terrorist organization; it’s never happened. The Bush administration, however, is now poised to add Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — backed by Ahmadinejad, among others — to its terrorism list. The move, apparently, is intended to make it easier for the U.S. to target the group’s business operations and finances.

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program, officials said.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said — a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

At least for now, this appears to be about cutting off resources. “Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”

Does this move us closer to a military confrontation? It’s hard to say, exactly. The administration is still talking to Iran about Iraq, but the administration also believes the Revolutionary Guard is responsible for undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq.

In this sense, I think Brian Beutler has it right: “[I]f Bush’s policy remains an unwillingness to distinguish between terrorists and the countries that harbor them, then he’s all but compelled to strike.”

What’s more, it’s not as if the State Department will help scale back these ambitions.

The NYT noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been largely responsible for adding the Revolutionary Guard to the terrorist list.

According to European diplomats, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned of the move in recent conversations with European counterparts, saying that a delay in efforts to win approval from the United Nations Security Council for further economic sanctions on Iran was leaving the administration with little choice but unilateral action.

A move toward putting the Revolutionary Guard on the foreign terrorist list would serve at least two purposes for Ms. Rice: to pacify, for a while, administration hawks who are pushing for possible military action, and to further press America’s allies to ratchet up sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.

Yglesias adds a good big-picture thought:

It’s taken a few years, but we’ve managed to move now from a situation in the winter 2001-2002 where the US and Iran were cooperating against our mutual deadly foe — al-Qaeda — to one where Iran is officially one of the enemies in an open-ended struggle against God knows whom.

Feel safer?

Gee. By this new standard I wonder how long it will be before the CIA, or parts of it, and other US organizations are deemed terrorist organizations by the rest of the world. What a bunch of destructive incompetents.

  • Here’s what happens: Russia ignores our saber rattling and sells the IRG weapons. The pResident shakes his finger and calls it provocative.

    The end.

    Meanwhile, there’s the Chiquita case to give us insight into how the US deals with people who do business with terrorist groups.

    At least that’s how it deals with wealthy Americans who do business with terrorist groups.

  • …Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding.

    However, as we all later learned from our 9/11 Commission Report, “the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks…is of little practical significance.” So, why is it a concern to Dear Leader now?

  • The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran,

    Whaaaaat????????

    What “congressional pressure”?????? Pressure from the Republicans?

  • Why is the administration taking this action? The WaPo story suggests that it is congress that is pressuring them. There is you see,

    congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran

    I’d like to know the names of the legislators that are applying this pressure. This looks like an effort on the administration’s part to hedge their bet on this. Should something go wrong. They can blame it on congress.

    The NYTimes offers a different rational for the move from Condi. She hopes to

    pacify, for a while, administration hawks who are pushing for possible military action

    Well, we all know how effective Condi has been in out manuevering Cheney. I am sure Cheney will find a way to use this to escalate the confrontation. Then Condi can blame congress for forcing her to do this.

    Oh, and btw, I’ve just read recently-sorry no link-that Junior intends to accomplish implementing his agenda through executive orders in the in his remaining time in office.

  • This administration is not about Facts. Facts keep you from doing what you want to do. (as in get that oil) So they make things up and spin and spin their world ending scenarios for today’s oil company bottom line. Fear, hate, torture and killing trip lightly off of their slick, blackened tongues. The Bonzo grins and jokes and nods like the figure on a dashboard. The Gonzo lies and lies and lies and slinks around. The Darth schemes and pulls some strings behind the black curtain. The pursuit of power & oil is a siren call they cannot ignore. Iran is just the next step…wonder what will come after Iran?

    And we are just the “mob” (as Karl so baldly put it the other day) : the unwashed rabble beneath the feet of the wealthy corporate elite. We really are “invisible” to them. (as Hiliary so aptly put it in her ad…)

  • Uh, does anyone remember this:

    WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — By mistake, the Pentagon sold 1,400 pieces of F-14 fighter jet parts to public even after it announced such sale will be suspended, a U.S. government watchdog said on Wednesday.

    Iran is the only country flying F-14 right now and may need such parts.

    Terrorist supporters indeed…

  • Given the administration has informed us that “enemy combatants” don’t deserve Geneva Convention protections if they’re not in unform, are we going to assume that those who have been designated do deserve Geneva Convention protections even if they are in uniform?

    And if both sides declare each other’s troops to be terrorists…

    I guess the Geneva Conventions are dying…

  • People are one step ahead of me this morning.

    From Christy at FDL,

    A few weeks back readers here were dismayed when the Senate gave near unanimous approval of a resolution by Senator Lieberman essentially calling Iran an enemy of America. Democrats claimed that softening amendments made the resolution harmless and thus took the cowardly path of a cheap vote against a country that the Administration and its neocon advisors and allies keeping painting as the next desirable battle ground. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

    See congress passes a toothless resolution and the administration supplies the teeth.

  • As I mentioned in my comments on the WaPo site following the article, this initiative is likely to make ordinary Iranians laugh, harden their resolve, invest the Republican Guard with a bad-boy international cachet they didn’t possess before and get every Westerner in Iran arrested as a spy, in an ante-up exercise.

    Stupid beyond belief if you are still seriously trying the diplomatic approach. Stupidly cunning if your aim was always war.

  • “The administration is still talking to Iran about Iraq, but the administration also believes the Revolutionary Guard is responsible for undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq.”

    No, the Administration simply wants to believe that the IRGC are responsible for undermining US efforts in Iraq.

    “If Bush’s policy remains an unwillingness to distinguish between terrorists and the countries that harbor them, then he’s all but compelled to strike.”

    Then why aren’t we (or haven’t we been) striking Paksitan?

    And thanks again, Democratically-controlled Congress (one would have thought, anyway), for voting almost unanimously to support Lieberman’s Iran resolution. That was so smart.

  • Do I feel safer? Never before have I felt less safe. Makes sense though, everything in Bushworld is assbackwards. Does BushCo have America’s best interest at heart? Sure they do and it’s safe to let a fox watch over a chicken house.

  • Just freakin’ incredible – these blasted morons go along with a “near unanimous” resolution that the dumbest among them should have stayed away with, and what do we get???

    Grrrrrrrrrrr…..

    I do a lot of “dialing for Democrats,” and I can safely say that these fuckwits need to figure out that the people who put them in office are seriously pissed off with their spineless, brainless fuckwittedness.

  • In this sense, I think Brian Beutler has it right: “[I]f Bush’s policy remains an unwillingness to distinguish between terrorists and the countries that harbor them, then he’s all but compelled to strike.”

    What is the evidence that Iran is harboring terrorists? And Bush certainly seems to be able to overlook the fact that Pakistan actually is harboring terrorists.

  • The Post article explains the reference to “congressional pressure” later. It’s not about the resolution but about another bill (S 970/HR 1400) that for some reason hasn’t passed yet despite strong support:

    The administration’s move comes amid growing support in Congress for the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which was introduced in the Senate by Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and in the House by Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). The bill already has the support of 323 House members.

    It is of course ridiculous to allow the White House to claim that Congress is pushing it to be more hawkish toward Iran. Perhaps the Post reporter should have asked some of the sponsors of the bill whether they approve of this executive order.

  • I saw this in the WaPo this morning. Under the headline that Bush declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be terrorists. I thought cool. With a few words Bush created 125,000 new terrorists. The Dems ought to point out how many new terrorists he’s created in one day

    Just my 2 cents

  • Does this mean Maliki will get in trouble if he continues to meet with Iran?

    13. On August 15th, 2007 at 11:36 am, Mark said:
    As I mentioned in my comments on the WaPo site following the article, this initiative is likely to make ordinary Iranians laugh, harden their resolve, invest the Republican Guard with a bad-boy international cachet they didn’t possess before and get every Westerner in Iran arrested as a spy, in an ante-up exercise.

    Ding, ding, ding! They’re probably giving each other high fives and thinking about new uniforms. Jackets with an IRG boot kicking a GWB arse embroidered on the back perhaps? Although I don’t know if the civilians’ first reaction will be laughter. Shrubya probably thinks the Iranians will panic and overthrow Ahmalamadingdong to prevent an invasion. It would never cross his tiny mind that they would all get pissed and take up arms and prepare to repel the foreign invaders.

    When they realize what sort of shape our army is in, THEN they’ll laugh.

    And still no comment on the vast numbers of insurgents coming from Saudi Arabia…

  • No I don’t feel safer! Everyday I live in fear of my president…of what he might do next(or I should say what Cheney will get him to do next). It’s more propaganda to cover an underlying plan for an endless war. Saudi Arabia supplies arms and trained personnel to Sunni insurgents who attack US forces but we aren’t banging the war drum at them. Bush has ulterior motives here. But doesn’t he always? He no longer has any credibility and certainly garners no trust. So now he adds to our fears. In his condemnation of Iran he forgets the Shah’s reign that has given birth to present day Iran. He would make better progress if he would open up serious dialogue to get Iran to stop arms coming across the border themselves yet Bush won’t even discuss it. Yes, I live in fear of my president…look at what he’s about to do next.

  • “It’s taken a few years, but we’ve managed to move now from a situation in the winter 2001-2002 where the US and Iran were cooperating against our mutual deadly foe — al-Qaeda — to one where Iran is officially one of the enemies in an open-ended struggle against God knows whom.”

    Could it have been that crack about “axis of evil”…?

  • It’s another instance of blurring the lines. First, the ordinary, garden variety terrorists were designated as “combatants”, suggesting a more organised, military structure. Now, a military arm of a country which Bush happens to dislike (they have too much oil) is designated as a terrorist organisation…

    Nothing is more useful than the magic wand of an executive order…

  • There are no arms crossing the border from Iran. There are no nukes, no yellowcake, no weapons of mass destruction. That’s advertising – a rehash of the exact same lies they told about IRAQ, in a new improved package. You must be careful not to accept the premise of the old lies tossed down the memory hole. We must all try to hold on to the truth. About six months ago they declared there was “Al-Quaeda in Iraq”, and now it is reported as truth. In fact, Al Quaeda are now the only people killed in Iraq, other than our troops. Yet they don’t exist. And now Shrub declares the Iranian Republican Guard terrorists. In five weeks we will be arguing about something else, and the “Iranian terror army” will be accepted as just another fact as well. If the Iranian Republican Guard can be terrorists, then everybody is a terrorist. It’s nutsy.

    Even more frightening is the way Bush is thrusting the country into a whole new war by bootstrapping his own Executive Order 13224 – this is just mind boggling circular reasoning. Poof! No need for congress to act, Bush just leapfrogged them. It makes me want to re-read the nebulous and open-ended passages of the 200-plus pages of the Patriot Act and see what else he can do. Chicken Little yells the sky is falling, and the Pentagon rushes in, guns blazing… But everyone forgets that no terrorists have been TRIED, no terror plots have been uncovered (London bombing being very likely a false flag op)…there are no terrorists….(sorry, Padilla was not a terrorist). We’re so fucking desperate for terrorists Bush has to start labeling entire foreign standing armies as terrorists, just so we have somebody to bomb with white phosphorus.

    This is what it must have been like to live under the rule of a King – unimaginable dolts who believed themselves blessed with the omnipotence of god, toying with the assets of a nation, trying to build an empire for a five-thousand year reign for the chosen elites… And Congress, the wooly little sheep that they are, all just go “baa” and skitter into the slaughterhouse, gambling the entire treasury and the national debt on one big spin of the wheel for everlasting glory … I wonder if any of them ever lay down in their silk sheets at night, their bellies pumped full of warm gooey ejaculate following their threesomes with the Military Industrial Complex, the Financiers, and the New World Order, and wonder how they got to be such spineless, fascist whores?

    Lost, lost. The republic is lost…

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