Today comes news that "[t]he 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 the Washington Post:
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.
Here's the relevant section of the bill, S.970 (under Section 3):
(8) The Secretary of State should designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189) and the Secretary of the Treasury should place the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224 (66 Fed. Reg. 186; relating to blocking property and prohibiting transactions with persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism).
And here are the 67 Senate cosponsors to date. Note that they include liberals like Senators Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Sherrod Brown, plus Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and Barack Obama.
In the House of Representatives, there are 323 cosponsors, including Virginia Representatives Jim Moran (D), Bobby Scott (D), Eric Cantor (R-7), Tom Davis (R-11), Thelma Drake (R-2), Randy Forbes (R-4), Bob Goodlatte (R-6), and Frank Wolf (R-10).
Interesting omissions, at least so far, include Senators Webb and Warner. Overall, however, the cosponsors of this bill represent large majorities in Congress for taking tougher action against Iranian nuclear proliferation activities.
What is the Revolutionary Guard? According to today's lead article in the Washington Post by Robin Wright:
The Revolutionary Guard Corps -- with its own navy, air force, ground forces and special forces units -- is a rival to Iran's conventional troops. Its naval forces abducted 15 British sailors and marines this spring, sparking an international crisis, and its special forces armed Lebanon's Hezbollah with missiles used against Israel in the 2006 war. The corps also plays a key role in Iran's military industries, including the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons and surface-to-surface missiles, according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In addition, the Bush Administration has accused the Guard of "providing munitions, training and other support to Shiite militants who have been attacking American troops in Iraq."
OK, so the Revolutionary Guard is not a bunch of good guys. The question is, what - if anything - should we be doing against them? Also, will unilateral U.S. sanctions against the Guard be any more effective than other sanctions have proved in the past? In other words, not very effective at all? Finally, will this move make diplomatic efforts vis-a-vis Iran MORE or LESS difficult? One analysts, Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress, says that sanctions would "greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue" in that "[t]he only way you could get a nuclear deal is as part of a grand bargain, which at this point is completely out of reach."
What do you think?
Most of the reports simply cite anonymous "Administration sources." CNN has a story citing an unnamed "State Department" official.
We are left with two possible conclusions:
(1) A relatively unified neocon-dominated Administration is ratcheting up the pressure against Iran. The strategy is to make the diplomatic and propaganda case for a preemptive war against Iran, possibly by encouraging Israel to make an initial air strike against Iranian targets. Sen. Joe Lieberman's clever anti-Iranian resolution in July seemed to be an indicator that VP Cheney and his Chief of Staff David Addington have been thinking through such an intended chess combination fairly thoroughly. The Smith-Lantos bill cited by Lowell suggests that the Administration is confident that it has once again maneuvered Congress into the required political box.
BTW: in recent days there has been much angst in the Israeli press over the military posture of Syria. Are the Israelis are trying to ensure that there will be no danger of opening a front on their Golan border should they decide to collaborate with the U.S. in conducting air strikes against Iran? If Israeli planes are assigned the task of launching the initial air strikes, they would surely require tanker support from the U.S., as well as careful coordination of flight paths (over U.S. occupied territory) into Iran.
(2) The other possibility is that we are in the midst of a blood-on-the-carpet debate over Iran within the Administration. If the leaks regarding the intention to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards to be a terrorist organization are coming primarily--or solely--from the State Department, such a source of the spoon-fed leaks would suggest that Secretary of State Rice is playing her last available diplomatic card to preempt a Cheney/Addington-sponsored attack on Iran. (Whether this card actually makes concrete diplomatic sense is an entirely different debate.)
How can we tell which explanation is the real one? The bellwether may well be Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Gates seems to have done his best to introduce reality back into the Pentagon and Bush Administration. He seems to have been allied with Secretary Rice in this effort. He may have single-handedly prevented a conflict with Iran last spring. But in recent weeks there have been signs that Gates has been getting worn down by the relentless Cheney/Addington team. It seems possible that Karl Rove's sudden departure signals the ultimate Cheney palace coup. Cheney and Addington may now be utterly ascendant within the White House.
Gates, with his background as a Bush family retainer, may simply lack the fiber to stand up to Cheney and Addington. If Gates begins to join the propaganda offensive against Iran and if he meekly praises the report on the "success of the surge in Iraq" now being drafted at the White House (i.e., by Cheney's office) for the signatures of Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker, the signal of what is to come will be very clear.
And if Secretary Gates, having lost the bureaucratic battle, resigns in coming weeks "to spend more time with his family," the portent will be equally clear.
Like the MVD and the SS, the IRG is effectively a rival military, sapping equipment and respurces that would normally go to the regular forces, and probably essentially operates in the manner of a secret police force.
The main worrying thing about them is that they seem to basically have their own agenda, and are large enough to pressure the Iranian government to get their way. So it's probably a good idea to keep a close eye on them. If there's ever a coup in Iran that installs a hardline government, my money would be on the IRG as the instigator.