Another brilliant little idea from Condolezza Rice, the administration’s foreign policy expert who is absolutely clueless and dismal in everything she does.
The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.
Who is a terrorist to the bush administration? Saddam’s army. The Taliban. Al Qaeda. Environmental extremists. Peace groups. Democrats. Anti-American insurgents. Now the Iranian military. Everybody is a freakin’ terrorist, yet they can’t actually catch or prosecute any of ‘em.
You should probably do a little more research into the Revolutionary Guard Corps because they are not “the military.”
Jay – You might be mistaking Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with the Revolutionary Guard Corps of Libya. The latter, true, is a paramilitary unit, that functions as Qaddafi’s protection force.
Iran’s Guard is a branch of the regular military…the largest branch, in fact. Declaring the Guard a terrorist group is like declaring the USMC a terrorist group.
They may in fact be an hostile fighting force, but I don’t understand why we need to declare them “terrorists,” unless we don’t want to deal with anymore pesky Geneva Convention protocols if we capture any Guards.
Remember Bush’s “not in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia but anywhere else” threat to go after terrorists and the countries that harbor them?
Talk about a transparent step towards “justifying” air strikes.
Iran’s Guard is a branch of the regular military…the largest branch, in fact. Declaring the Guard a terrorist group is like declaring the USMC a terrorist group.
Spider, that is incorrect.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or Pasradan as it is known was created in 1979 after the revolution, to specifically guard the revolution itself, nothing more. The Qods Force, part of the IRGC, operates outside the country specifically for the purpose of terrorist operations and terrorist training.
You’re confusing the IRGC with the Islamic Republic of Iran Army/Air Force/Navy.
Jay, could you please square your suggestion that the Guard is not part of the Iranian military with this from the second and third paragraphs of the NY Times piece:
Or are you splitting some hair that no one but you and a bunch of other hacks can see in the first place by saying that, well, they’re part of the military but they aren’t THE military? What the fuck is the difference?
Wouldn’t it be easier to put them on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION??
But hey, Labor Day is coming. Time to roll out some new product.
The IRGC is considered both separate and parallel to the Iranian Army, Navy, and Air Force. It began as you say, but then evolved into a regular military fighting force during the Iran-Iraq war.
This isn’t al-Qaida or Islamic Jihad, here. They are a government institution, funded by the state of Iran. Which, now that I write it, makes it seem clear to me that if you want to attack a state under the aegis that said state sponsors terrorists, then all you have to do is declare that one of their regularly funded government entities is a terrorist organization.
Will Bunch has figured out this Cheney plot:
A prelude to war: What’s really behind Bush’s Iran move
The White House hawks in Dick Cheney’s office and elsewhere who want to stage an attack on Iran are clearly winning the internal power stuggle. And an often overlooked sub-plot on the long road toward war with Tehran is this: How could Bush stage an attack on Iran without the authorization of a skeptical, Democratic Congress?
Today, the White House has solved that pesky problem in one fell swoop. By explicitly linking the Iranian elite guard into the post 9/11 “global war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush’s lawyers would certainly now argue that any military strike on Iran is now covered by the October 2002 authorization to use military force in Iraq, as part of their overly sweeping response to the 2001 attacks.
http://www.attytood.com/2007/08/a_prelude_to_war_whats_really.html
Spider, they may have been used during the Iraq/Iran war, but their sole purpose is to protect the Islamic revolution. The IRGC was ready to matters into their own hands in 1999 when they felt that Mohammad Khatami was not acting strongly enough to quell student uprisings displaying the kind of autonomy that they enjoyed.
It is no secret that the IRGC is a major support of Palestinian terror groups, as it is part of their unofficial exported activities.
None of which, of course, addresses the issue. Way to go, Jay.
Jay, I wasn’t able to find out anything about the student uprisings and the IRGC, but I did find these quotes from The Heritage Foundation:
That reads to me like the IRGC practically took over the Iranian government, more than it being some autonomous entity. Maybe your information is just a bit out of date?
OxyCon, that is terrifying. It’s like the White House is literally being run by an al-Qaeda mole.
Limulus, the IRGC hasn’t really taken over the government as a whole, but many former members do occupy positions of power within the Iranian government to help give them political clout.
The best way I can put it is that the IRGC is kind of like what the SS was in Germany vis a vis their regular armed forces. They have their own intelligence agency, their own companies, etc. Almost a state within a state type of situation.
You can add this all to the list of f*ckups by the dem congress, too.
Remember when they debated revoking the AUMF but didn’t?
Remember when they had a chance to explicitly deny Bush the authority to attack Iran, but, again, didn’t?
Certainly, explaining their massive, catastrophic failures to the public as the GOP cranks up the fear mongering should be lotsa fun.
yet they can’t actually catch or prosecute any of ‘em
Oliver, you know better. Quit pretending that’s the point. They never gave a damn about catching or prosecuting anyone other than maybe Saddam Hussein.
You can add this all to the list of f*ckups by the dem congress, too
What, you don’t think its patheticness was by design? Democrats explicitly give Cheney the authority to attack Iran, with only two dissenting, one (Ron Paul) a Republican. That’s isn’t a mistake, that’s what they want. You can’t call it a mistake when the whole frigging Senate votes for it.
It strikes me as a better idea to hold the feet of the Democrats to the fire. After all, we tend to vote for them — some here even give them money — and we might get somewhere if we focus on them. Holding Cheney’s feet to the fire is a lost cause, since he doesn’t give a damn if they burn.
Other terrorists:
–People who want to bring their own beverages and shampoo through airport security
–People who want to visit a National Park in a state that doesn’t cooperate with new Federal ID systems
–People who want to attend a public Presidential event and silently express their opinions via a t-shirt or bumpersticker
–People who use a phone or the internet
–Brown-skinned people who aren’t dressed for white collar jobs
–People who read blogs like this one
Of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Jay said: “their sole purpose is to protect the Islamic revolution.” But isn’t the U.S. military’s purpose to protect the Constitution?