USA set to designate Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Terrorist organization

I don’t know about you, but this is EXACTLY what I want for Christmas.

Everywhere you look from where I am sitting, be it just south in Gaza with the Hamas & Islamic Jihad, looking North towards Lebanon and the Hezbollah, or East towards Tehran itself.. The filthy fingers of the Revolutionary Guards are more than evident, pulling radical Islamic strings & sowing bloodshed and terror.

If you happen to stop in between in Iraq or Afghanistan, you’ll quickly find them murdering American servicemen as well, that might include British & Canadian troops, with Canadian forces in the last few months suffering particularly difficult losses to the infamous shaped charges the Revolutionary Guards are spreading about like candy. These explosives are designed implicitly to rip through protective armor & shielding, maiming and killing their targeted occupants.

Of course, the Iranian missionaries of murder don’t fight soldiers head on, they are cowards who target civilians with rockets, or scurry around like rats & roaches leaving roadside bombs along the way in the hopes of thwarting their number one enemy – Liberty & Freedom.

They train, they arm and they recruit because Iran is the foremost World sponsor of Terrorism, home of the Islamic Revolution and the Guards are the foot-soldiers in their terrorist army. It was the Revolutionary Guards who abducted at gunpoint the UK’s sailors recently, and it is the Revolutionary Guards whom Iran has threatened to employ in the training & deployment of over 50,000 human suicide bombers to target America & its interests.

When one considers all this, in conjunction with the mad drive for nuclear weapons, the endless threats and sickening repression, the lack of human rights, the religious police strolling around beating people for not dressing according to Islamic code.. One can only stop, look at the American administration and ask – What the hell took you so long!?

Washington Post Via Memeorandum

Robin Wright

The 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 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.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.” [...]

It is nice to see that congressional pressure has played a role in moving the US admin forward on this, but let’s not forget one thing. It is & was US Congressional Democrats who have been ceaselessly hammering in conjunction with their appeasing European friends on the US administration to open up dialog, sit down for chit chats & for all intents & purposes WASTE TIME, while Iran’s nuclear & terrorism programs steamroll onwards. This 1st step at trying to isolate & strangle Iran’s terrorism unit financially can lay the ground work, but it is high time the US stop playing pokey with regards to Iran.

Convenient Scapegoat? We choose Israel as usual. 

It is popular in the bourgeois EU & corrupt / inept United Nations to muse how ‘World Peace’ magically leads through Ramallah, as if the Palestinians hold the keys to some magical future nirvana. That simply giving them their currently ungovernable state will make everyone break out in song and make fresh daisies grow while doves drop honeydew on our heads.. But that’s nothing more than a pipe dream, one that conveniently draws blood from the EU/UN’s favorite whipping boy which is Israel. Even the US has recently been playing footsie with this dangerous idea, it’s wishful thinking.

The reality is that Iran is the source of real bloodshed & real chaos, both now and potentially much more devastatingly so going forward. Here’s to hoping the American Congress & the US Administration can find the right direction again, this being a 1st but phenomenally important step on that all too important path.

Visit Memeorandum for further info & perspective on the topic.

UPDATE Aug 16: Initial Iranian Response

IRNA – Foreign Ministry official on Wednesday dismissed as propaganda the US media report that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was put in the list of the terrorist organizations. “Such reports fall within framework of the US statesmen’s psychological-propaganda warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran and lack any professional value,” he said.  The Foreign Ministry official said no report has yet been issued on the side of the official authorities so that no one can make a firm comment.

Addtional looks:
SoccerDad has a good overview, including fresh perspectives and criticisms. The Captain’s Quarters weighs in on the economic aspects, which is the impetus for the move..

[...]
What benefit does this bring? It allows the US to pursue sanctions against any company supporting the IRG. The Bush administration can close off banking links and access to American markets for the members of the IRG’s financial network. The US can expose these business dealings, and plans to do so as soon as possible.

That will mean taking the economic fight to the heart of the Iranian economy. Although the US could have designated just the subsidiary Qods force as a terrorist group, the decision to name the IRG gives the US a broad front. Many of Iran’s leading businessmen come from the IRG and maintain ties to it; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad served in the IRG, as did many of the political class. By naming the IRG as a terrorist group, anyone associated with it could have their assets seized from American banks. Other banks that handle their assets could face exclusion from American financial networks, which would mean most banks would close their accounts forthwith. [...]

Powerlining it..

If there is some action that can be taken against the Revolutionary Guard short of pulling a trigger, the question that occurs to me is why we haven’t taken it long ago. The Post can’t find anyone who raises that question. Instead, they find “some analysts” who questions the wisdom of a step this drastic. [...]

There has been some discussion as to the benefits of tempering this, limiting the motion etc. in order to placate EU / Arab & Asian allies, or not rock the boat. To what end?! While some in the US might prefer to saudade for the glory days when the hope was EU faux multilateralism might bring about concrete results.. It is precisely due to the fact that sanctions have not been given enough teeth and that years of European dialogs have proven utterly ineffective in engaging Iran that we are brought now, to this need for stronger economic leverage & tone.

Surely now is not the time to barlafumble & vacillate?

Considering the moral clarity involved in combating terrorism, the rapidly moving time frames and the need to defend western interests and human values against this seemingly endless front of Iranian duplicity and underhandedness, I believe SoccerDad pins the tail on the donkey – ‘seems like a no brain-er’.

Tags: Iran, USA, Revolutionary Guards, Terrorism, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Afghanistan, Iraq, War on Terror