Finally, some reality for Iran

According to Robin Wright at the Washington Post, the US government is planning on designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a “terrorist organization”;

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.

Well, it’s about-damn-time. The Post goes on to explain some of the US’ options on dealing with Iran;

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.”

[…]

“Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “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.”

For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

It’ll also give the US the option of using force to shut down the Iran/Iraq border.

I can’t remember where I read it now, but PPK terrorists in Turkish Kurdistan derailed a train last week that was delivering rockets and arms to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon from Iran. This wasn’t discovered until Turkish investigators searched the freight on the overturned train. How strangely silent the media has been on that little discovery.

But really strange is discovering that Reuters has writers that can actually spell the word “terrorist“.

I expect the Democrats, and especially Nancy Pelosi, our new diplomat to the Near East terrorist organizations,  to condemn this as being counter to the Iraq Study Group’s proposal that we talk with Iran until we’re blue in the face.

Category: Foreign Policy, Media, Politics, Terror War