U.S. Confronts Iran With Terror Listing

Analysts have warned that U.S. plans to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity would increase tensions between the countries and could precipitate future confrontations with Iran, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 15).

U.S. officials have alleged that Iran is aiming to develop nuclear weapons, a charge that Tehran has denied, and that the Guard is providing support for insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Diplomatic efforts have failed to resolve the issues.

“The move reflects that there is a lot of frustration that the diplomacy isn't yielding results," said Ray Takeyh, a Middle East specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Listing the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group would enable U.S. financial regulators to freeze assets associated with the group under U.S. jurisdiction, although those assets are expected to be few.

The designation would also give the United States a pretext to pressure foreign companies to stop doing business with firms connected to the Revolutionary Guard on the grounds that such business supports terrorism.

Some analysts said that designating the Guard as a terrorist group would show Iran that the United States is preparing to take tougher actions against the organization, AP reported.

“Once they get classified as terrorist, American institutions will have the legitimacy they need to fight the Revolutionary Guards,” said Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Gulf Research Center think tank in the United Arab Emirates.

“If this is a terrorist organization and it fires missiles in the (Persian) Gulf, then the U.S. would have an obligation to fight the Guards,” Alani said, adding he did not expect an imminent attack on Iran because the U.S. military is embroiled in fighting in Iraq (Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press/Bismarck Tribune, Aug. 15).

Foreign policy analysts said yesterday that the United States has never before determined an independent country’s military force to be a terrorist organization, the CanWest News Service reported.

“The United States has chosen to up the ante against Iran.  This is a warning, or an indicator, that a major policy shift is unfolding within the Bush administration,” said retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, an Iran policy expert and former war games planner at the National War College in Washington, D.C.

“From a policy perspective, it’s huge.  Never in the history of warfare has another country declared another’s armed forces to be a separate instrument from the state,” he said.

The move could allow the Bush administration to take military action against Iran — an option advocated by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney — under the congressional authorization issued in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks permitting military action against terrorist groups.

“If the U.S. had decided on the Cheney option, this is what we would do as a way of preparing for it,” Gardiner said.  “The new Cheney option includes air strikes against terrorist training camps inside Iran” (Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service, Aug. 16).

The Bush administration said again yesterday that military action against Iran was not planned but not ruled out, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

“Military action is not being contemplated,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

“No president should ever take that option off the table, but diplomacy is what we are aiming towards and what we are working on in terms of the U.N. Security Council," she said (Xinhua News Agency/China View, Aug. 16).

A Revolutionary Guard spokesman dismissed the U.S. threat, Reuters reported today.

“Not only would the Revolutionary Guards not be isolated but rather it would actively continue its trend of growth with strength,” the daily Jam-e Jam quoted the group’s political chief, referred to as Javani, as saying.

“Americans have been fighting the Islamic system for 27 years and create plots against it.  But the Revolutionary Guards have made defending the Islamic system its duty and will increase its capabilities in this regard day by day,” he said (Reuters, Aug. 16).

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