by Kagro X
Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary GuardBy Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
[...]
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.
Did you catch that last part? The United States is declaring a branch of another country's military to be terrorists. Which, I suppose, would shoehorn an attack on them into the AUMF (not that the "administration" ever believed such authorization was necessary).
And, of course, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for detention of Revolutionary Guard personnel (or anyone "suspected" of the same) captured, well, anywhere in the world, presumably. The United States might be expected, under this provision, to suspend the application of the Geneva Conventions to the actual, uniformed soldiery of Iran. Granted, the Revolutionary Guard is a bit of an odd duck, at least in western terms, but this looks like trouble to me.
Finally, we should consider the effects of this declaration on our evaluation of the Lieberman amendment. You'll recall that the clause that mollified even Senator Feingold was this one:
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of Armed Forces against Iran.
And you'll recall that I explained to you how useless that was in light of the "administration's" view that the use of force by the president need not be authorized by anyone.
That's still true as far as the "administration" is concerned. But this new declaration both obviates and obscures the need to say so outright. And those, of course, are the conditions in which they're most comfortable operating.
Guess he REALLY doesn't need authorization/support/input/the sense he was born with during the August recess. Just keep spreadin' the wealth, dubya; what's a few thousand more graves.
Posted by: Waiting for Truth | August 15, 2007 at 09:08
Well I think many of us have been suggesting that the only thing that Cheney/Bush could do to stop an impeachment was start a war with Iran and put this nation into a crises. I am so angry that the dems have not begun impeachment because that would stop them cold.
Posted by: Katie Jensen | August 15, 2007 at 09:10
That's funny, Katie. Because a lot of Dems have said that the only thing that would motivate them to start an impeachment would be if W. decided to start a war with Iran.
I suspect your read is closer to reality, though.
Posted by: Kagro X | August 15, 2007 at 09:12
Those were the exact words which came to mind when I read the paper this morning: "Uh-oh, this can't be good." What was interesting was that they juxtaposed the article with a photograph showing a friendly-looking meeting between Ahmedinejad and Karzai. Since Karzai's our Man in the 'Stan, the photo was eye-opening when placed next to an article stating, in essence, that you shouldn't believe your lyin' eyes.
Posted by: landreau | August 15, 2007 at 09:13
I'm just saying -- what if Rove was the voice of reason and this is the hole in the dike his pudgy finger was keeping plugged up?
Posted by: AJ | August 15, 2007 at 09:17
a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
Aren't we already pretty tough on Iranian government finances? It's not like yesterday we were engaging in all kinds of commerce with them.
This is pure propaganda. I don't see what else the point could be.
Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg | August 15, 2007 at 09:37
This is very dangerous. The idiots running our country don't understand that this kind of crap will come back to haunt them. I'm sure the Marine Corps will be thrilled when countries start designating them as terrorists.
And, AJ, those of us from Texas who have had the displeasure of watching Rove operate know that the only thing he would hold back would be something reasonable.
Posted by: William Ockham | August 15, 2007 at 09:56
Once we are in a war crises, and you know it will start with a "crises". Bush/Cheney will claim that they cannot possibly attend to an impeachment and they must press on and that we who do not support the commander and cheif during a war crises are killing our country and soldiers and their are people who will totally buy it.
We have to stop this now.
Posted by: Katie Jensen | August 15, 2007 at 10:29
Kagro, your phrase "Granted, the Revolutionary Guard is a bit of an odd duck" is just one more insight into Cheney's MO, that decades-long enterprise of his whose purpose is to remake/destroy govt here and elsewhere to replace it with that secret version, the one nobody seems to have a clue about.
So Iran happens to have an odd duck, giving Cheneyco a way to finesse the law etc., a propaganda tool which makes no sense when observed directly, but which fits with a bit of cramming & twisting into a newspaper story for all of us hawks. Do not forget that most of us have no interest in looking any deeper than what MSN provides.
Also, we know that there is a set of threats stored in Cheney's safe which keeps any opposition in check. How do we know this? Intelligent men don't pass legislation like this authorisation unless they are coerced. OK maybe those threats aren't really in Cheney's safe.
Posted by: rapt | August 15, 2007 at 10:29
I feel a mania coming on. ( I am really not manic but I wish I knew what I could do to affect a change in congress.) I have written, I have called. I just do not understand what the hell they are thinking.
Posted by: Katie Jensen | August 15, 2007 at 10:30
There is one major disconnect at work here that I have been wondering about... We (the US, in the form of Big Dick) keep rattling our sabres and drawing lines in the sand, and making pronouncements such as this. On the other hand, I keep reading that our armed forces do not have the depth required to replace troops, and redeployments keep happening.
So, just how does Big Dick propose to take on Iraq? Or, is he truly the madman who would use thermonuclear weapons just because? I think the fact that he would even consider such an option should be cause for impeachment.
Posted by: Sojourner | August 15, 2007 at 10:43
I saw the headline on the captive-audience screen in the elevator and my reaction was "they're setting up a war with Iran".
I'd really, really like to be wrong about that.
Posted by: P J Evans | August 15, 2007 at 10:48
One of the generals just made an announcment yesterday that the "draft" was not off the table and the draft certainly will be given consideration. There are lots of folks who say this won't happen blah, blah, blah. I think if there is a big enough crises the american people will forced to comply. How would we stop them?? They now can spy on us. How will we stop them from drafting our children?? My observation is that the american people have been completely shut out in influencing the behavior of this administration. Is there any example??
When it gets' pooh, poohed..I think people are egaging in dangerous complacency. What would stop them? Have we been successful in stopping anything this administration set it's mind to do?
Posted by: Katie Jensen | August 15, 2007 at 10:54
There will never be a draft for the wars/conduct of the Cheneyites. That is their giant Catch-22. To continue with their dastardly imperialism, at the rate they have ben going, a draft looks ever more necessary. At the same time, as so many have noted, the second that the Romney, Kristol and kagan children and grandchildren start being conscripted, the gig is up.
Posted by: bmaz | August 15, 2007 at 11:20
I think we are in a period of test marketing. Cheney, neocons, various imperialists and Likidniks (I am not trying here to decode their various motivations) want the U.S. to attack Iran.
They ran out imminent mushroom clouds for awhile, but Europeans and general fatigue with WMD threats seems to have momentarily stalled that.
They claimed Iran is arming the Iraqi insurgency -- except the sectarian situation makes that implausible (besides, it turns out they are arming the insurgency with those all those lost rifles.)
So they claim Iran is exporting terrorism through the Revolutionary Guards.
Do we expect the attack on Iran this fall or more likely in winter?
Posted by: janinsanfran | August 15, 2007 at 11:23
jan, don't you just love the "Iran is arming the Iraq insurgency" tripe? Sure looks to me like the country that has done the most to "arm the Iraq insurgency", and that has likely cause therefrom the most deaths of US soldiers and contractors from the insurgency is, well, the US. All those weapons caches we couldn't be bothered to secure in our under staffed blitzkrieg shock and awe, all the weapons and ordnance that has disappeared etc. I say that Congress should take action against those who have done the most to support and arm the Iraqi insurgency and al Qaida; the neocons running our government.
Posted by: bmaz | August 15, 2007 at 11:35
Dick Cheney's office is redefining words in his unflinching efforts to create war. Let us not forget perspective. This whole thing started with 19 rabidly enthusiastic Middle East isolationists who wanted USA out of that part of their world. A terrorist is someone- an individual- who will strap on a bomb to kill himself amid large groups of innocent civilians. now Cheney has methodically enlarged that group to include people who even talk about USA negatively. He is out of control, and we are in deadly need of voices to return to reason. A word also being redefined by the Cheney machine.
Posted by: Sandbar | August 15, 2007 at 11:50
I have wondered how many of those guns and bombs we just sold to the middle east say "made in Iran" on them? As soon as they started showing up in Baghdad, the Big Dick has his war.
Posted by: JohnJ | August 15, 2007 at 12:01
Saudi Arabia is arming and supporting the insurgency in a much more real sense that Iran. How many Iranians have been caught assisting the insurgency? NONE. Most of the foreign fighters arrested are Saudis. The only Iranians I have heard of being arrested in Iraq are those we dragged from an embassy.
And we are arming, training and providing financial support to the MEK, a designated terrorist group operating from Iraq into Iran.
Iran has provided monetary assistance to Iraq and training for Iraqi troops. It would be devastating to Iraq and Afghanistan if Iran said to hell with this and just stopped participating in any attempts at stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by: APISHAPA | August 15, 2007 at 12:10
How many Iranians have been caught assisting the insurgency? As many as you want. If they're "terrorists," then we don't have to document their capture, or produce them for the Red Cross.
So, how many you want? One? Four? Six dozen?
Posted by: Kagro X | August 15, 2007 at 12:25
The biggest supplier of arms to the Iraqi insurgencies is the US, via the Iraqi armed forces, and this is the reason we don't give them the really big weapons.
War with Iran has to be seen in context of the US elections. Cheney has to see that the GOP is headed for disaster, and he doesn't trust Hillary to do the job. So the attack has to come when it is clear that the GOP is irretrievably lost. That would suggest after the first primaries. But is a secondary motive to try to rally us around the flag? Affect the election? Then it is next year, maybe as much as a year or more from now.
If they do it this fall then the repercussions would surely topple the already shaky financial markets and wipe out even more of the GOP elite base, and tip the elections to the Dems. So we should be safe for another year. But start worrying about next March or so.
Posted by: Mimikatz | August 15, 2007 at 12:43
And, of course, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for detention of Revolutionary Guard personnel (or anyone "suspected" of the same) captured, well, anywhere in the world, presumably.
There's probably at least some CYA on this front, since we have already been holding Iranians seized in the Kurdish areas - all without compliance with Geneva Conventions or legal treaties - for a long long time now. And there have been reports of other Iranian military personnel "disappearing" with differing reports on whether they may have been kidnapped by the US or possibly defected.
If any of these "detainees" ever surface, I guess that there are some people in the Admin who want the CYA of being able to say they were "unlawful enemy combatants" to whom law does not apply.
Although really - when you look at the sentences being commuted and charges dropped against soldiers who do torture and kill Iraqi civilians who are not "unlawful enemy combatants" it seems awfully belts and suspenders to worry about war crimes now.
Apparently, in the army today - there is no such thing as a war crime. Should boost the recruitment among gang members who always thought that you could actually get in trouble for things like breaking the law.
Posted by: Mary | August 15, 2007 at 13:34
Declaring a significant portion of the armed forces of a state as a “terrorist organization” is tantamount to a declaration that that state is a terrorist organization - Bush has already declared Iran a "state sponsor" of terrorism. It is a half-step away from a declaration of war.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is paid for by the state, it is controlled by the state, all its assets are the state’s and all its missions are the state’s. Any change in its leadership, procedures, funding or mission is controlled by the state.
Imagine who would be dragged into Bush's new net with even one degree of separation - ie, those directly or indirectly supporting a “terrorist organization” or directly or indirectly undermining our “war effort” in Iraq: spies, banks, transport companies, caterers, weapons manufacturers, and, of course, the state itself. Among Iran’s other assets are enormous financial investments and oil stocks, some of which are outside of Iran. This declaration could lead to the US laying claim to all of them, certainly those under the control of US persons or those very friendly to them, such as the UK.
No state would allow that, of course, or so Mr. Cheney hopes. The needlessly and overtly incendiary move is designed to provoke a violent reaction from the Iranians. So violent or ill-thought out that it would allow Dick Cheney to go to war with other people’s children and money. Cheney hopes that result is a predictable as his own were Russia, the EU and China to condemn as “terrorist organizations” his Army or Special Forces, or his hundred sixty thousand odd mercenaries and other contractors in Iraq. Imagine the property that could be seized, the exposure of secrets, and the public war crimes trials.
Cheney knows he would do anything to avoid that. He hopes his Iranian counterparts are as blind to all recourse but war as he is. This is a provocative, unmistakable prelude to war. Who says August is recess time in Washington?
Posted by: earlofhuntingdon | August 15, 2007 at 14:26
Earl - I would hazard a guess that under some international laws that is a declaration of war.
Posted by: bmaz | August 15, 2007 at 14:40
So, Gulf of Tonkin-like, we kidnap/capture some RGs and hold 'em in Iraq, just within the grasp of other Iranian soldiers. They come across the boarder in full view of the world and attack American soldiers. Next thing ya know we're in full war mode with Iran. Couldn't be simpler and we can claim we were completely justified.
If ya want war there's always a way to start it. Bush is a bully and always has been, so he knows the routine well.
Posted by: MarkH | August 15, 2007 at 14:56
It certainly is bothersome.
Posted by: Jodi | August 16, 2007 at 00:26
Congress has laid the political groundwork for an attack in an obliging and fully bipartisan manner.
And they're going to keep right on sleepwalking. Near the end of the Post story KagroX links is this:
A quick look at the bill status in Thomas shows this interesting bit of scheduling:
So they'll be taking this up immediately after they come back from the recess. "Enhancing diplomatic efforts", eh? More like "rolling out the product..."
Posted by: Nell | August 16, 2007 at 12:14