<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/world/middleeast/15diplo.html> August 15, 2007 U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — 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.
The Revolutionary Guard is thought to be the largest branch of Iran's military. While the United States has long labeled Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, a decision to single out the guard would amount to an aggressive new challenge from an American administration that has recently seemed conflicted over whether to take a harder line against Tehran over its nuclear program and what American officials have called its destabilizing role in Iraq.
According to European diplomats, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned of the move in recent conversations with European counterparts, saying that a delay in efforts to win approval from the United Nations Security Council for further economic sanctions on Iran was leaving the administration with little choice but unilateral action.
A move toward putting the Revolutionary Guard on the foreign terrorist list would serve at least two purposes for Ms. Rice: to pacify, for a while, administration hawks who are pushing for possible military action, and to further press America's allies to ratchet up sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.
The State Department and Treasury officials are pushing for a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran's government, including an extensive travel ban and further moves to restrict the ability of Iran's financial institutions to do business abroad. American officials have also been trying to get European and Asian banks to take additional steps against Iran.
Senior administration officials said current plans called for the declaration to be made this month, but cautioned that it could be put off, and that the effort could still be set aside if the Security Council moved more quickly to impose broad sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
The officials said the declaration was being pushed by Ms. Rice, and would not say if it had been endorsed by the National Security Council or the Pentagon.
President Bush seemed to signal a tougher approach to Iran last week when he called attention to what American officials have said was an active role by the Revolutionary Guard in providing munitions, training and other support to Shiite militants who have been attacking American troops in Iraq. "When we catch you playing a nonconstructive role, there will be a price to pay," Mr. Bush said of Iran during a news conference on Thursday.
Listing would set in motion a series of automatic sanctions that would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the guard. In particular, the action would freeze any assets the guard has in the United States, although it is unlikely that the guard maintains much in the way of assets in American banks or other institutions.
In the internal debate over American policy toward Iran, Ms. Rice has succeeded over the last year in holding the Bush administration to a diplomatic course in which America and five other world powers have used the Security Council to impose sanctions to try to get Tehran to suspend its enrichment of uranium.
But in recent months, there has been resurgent debate within the administration about whether the diplomatic path is working, with aides to Vice President Dick Cheney said to be among those pushing for greater consideration of military options. The debate has been kindled by reports from international inspectors detailing Iran's progress in its nuclear program, including the installation of more than 1,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium, as well as the assertions from American intelligence officials about an Iranian role in providing arms and other support to Shiite militias in Iraq and to Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
Iran has repeatedly denied that it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, that it is helping in any way to facilitate attacks on American troops in Iraq or that it is shipping any weapons to the Taliban, a group Iran opposed in the 1990s.
On Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again dismissed American complaints that Iran is providing weapons to the Taliban. Speaking in Kabul, Afghanistan, after talks with President Hamid Karzai, he said Iran was "fully supporting" its new government.
Mr. Karzai played down the dispute over the weapons shipments, as he did during a visit to the White House this month. He said that Afghanistan and Iran were "brothers" and that both the United States and Iran were helping reconstruct his country.
In June, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the volume of weapons reaching the Taliban from Iran made it "difficult to believe" that the shipments were "taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government." In a television interview the same day, Assistant Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said there was "irrefutable evidence" that the weapons were coming from the Revolutionary Guard.
There are currently 42 organizations on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In taking aim at the guard, the administration is also trying to divide Iran's population. During his news conference on Thursday, President Bush addressed the Iranian people directly. "My message to the Iranian people is, 'You can do better than this current government,' " Mr. Bush said. " 'You don't have to be isolated. You don't have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic potential.' "
The United States government has not made a public estimate about the size of the Revolutionary Guard, an organization that dates to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and whose branches are believed to extend widely throughout the Iranian military. An estimate by GlobalSecurity.org, a research group based in Alexandria, Va., puts the total guard forces at 125,000.
The guard and its military wing are identified as a power base for Mr. Ahmadinejad. Under his administration, American officials said, the guard has moved increasingly into commercial operations, earning profits and extending its influence in Iran in areas involving big government contracts, including building airports and other infrastructure, oil production and providing cellphones.
The immediate legal consequence of the guard's designation as a terrorist organization would be to make it unlawful for anyone subject to United States jurisdiction to knowingly provide material support or resources to the guard, according to the State Department. Any United States financial institution that becomes aware that it possesses, or has control over, funds of a foreign terrorist organization would have to turn them over to the Treasury Department.
Because Iran has done little business with the United States in more than two decades, the larger point of the designation would be to heighten the political and psychological pressure on Iran, administration officials said, by using the designation to persuade foreign governments and financial institutions to cut ties with Iranian businesses and individuals.
The decision would have little impact on American military activities in Iraq, where coalition forces already pursue fighters, advisers and financiers who support antigovernment forces, according to a senior Defense Department official. "We are going to go after any forces that are engaged in activities that are disruptive to the stability and security of Iraq," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject was pending administration policy.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington, and David Rohde from Kabul, Afghanistan.
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18834.html> McClatchy Washington Bureau Posted on Thu, Aug. 09, 2007
Cheney urging strikes on Iran
Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: August 10, 2007 11:29:51 AM
WASHINGTON — President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.
At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.
Bush wasn't specific, and a State Department official refused to elaborate on the warning.
Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.
The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.
Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.
For now, however, the president appears to have settled on a policy of stepped-up military operations in Iraq aimed at the suspected Iranian networks there, combined with direct American-Iranian talks in Baghdad to try to persuade Tehran to halt its alleged meddling.
The U.S. military launched one such raid Wednesday in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadr City district.
But so far that course has failed to halt what American military officials say is a flow of sophisticated roadside bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, into Iraq. Last month they accounted for a third of the combat deaths among U.S.-led forces, according to the military.
Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.
The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that "we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq."
Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that "the vice president is right where the president is" on Iran policy.
Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough with Iran.
"One of the main reasons that I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for . . . people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs (improvised explosive devices), that kill Americans in Iraq," he said.
He also appeared to call on the Iranian people to change their government.
"My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government," he said. "You don't have to be isolated. You don't have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic potential."
The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated campaign to pin more of Iraq's security troubles on Iran.
Last week, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. military commander in Iraq, said Shiite militiamen had launched 73 percent of the attacks that had killed or wounded American troops in July. U.S. officials think that majority Shiite Iran is providing militiamen with EFPs, which pierce armored vehicles and explode once inside.
Last month, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a multinational force spokesman, said members of the Quds force had helped plan a January attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, which lead to the deaths of five American soldiers. Bergner said the military had evidence that some of the attackers had trained at Quds camps near Tehran.
Bush's efforts to pressure Iran are complicated by the fact that the leaders of U.S.-supported governments in Iraq and Afghanistan have a more nuanced view of their neighbor.
Maliki is on a three-day visit to Tehran, during which he was photographed Wednesday hand in hand with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unconfirmed media reports said Maliki had told Iranian officials they'd played a constructive role in the region.
Asked about that, Bush said he hadn't been briefed on the meeting. "Now if the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister, because I don't believe they are constructive. I don't think he in his heart of hearts thinks they're constructive either," he said.
Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai differed on Iran's role when they met last weekend, with Karzai saying in a TV interview that Iran was "a helper" and Bush challenging that view.
The toughening U.S. position on Iran puts Karzai and Iraqi leaders such as Maliki in a difficult spot between Iran, their longtime ally, and the United States, which is spending lives and treasure to secure their newly formed government.
A senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said the Iraqi government received regular intelligence briefings from the United States about suspected Iranian activities. He refused to discuss details, but said the American position worried him.
The United States is "becoming more focused on Iranian influence inside Iraq," said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss private talks with the Americans. "And we don't want Iraq to become a zone of conflict between Iran and the U.S."
Proposals to use force against Iran over its actions in Iraq mark a new phase in the Bush administration's long internal war over Iran policy.
Until now, some hawks within the administration — including Cheney — are said to have favored military strikes to stop Iran from furthering its suspected ambitions for nuclear weapons.
Rice has championed a diplomatic strategy, but that, too, has failed to deter Iran so far.
Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make the nuclear diplomacy more difficult.
Before launching such a strike, "We better be prepared to go public with very detailed and very convincing intelligence," Clawson said.
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
<http://robertdreyfuss.com/blog/2007/08/second_occupied_ally_backs_ira.html> Second occupied ally backs Iran
First it was the Iranian-allied, Shia-led government of Iraq that waxed effusive with praise for Iran. Now it's Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-installed president of Afghanistan, with kind words to say about the Axis of Evil next door:
"So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution," says
Karzai on CNN. "Iran has been a supporter of
Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and
the fight against terror and the fight against narcotics
in Afghanistan. [We have] very, very good, very, very
close relations ... We will continue to have good
relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues,
if any arise."
The next day President Bush was all kerfuffled, speaking next to Karzai. One can only imagine the president's confusion. How annoying. We go to all the trouble of occupying two countries, and just when we're starting to think about attacking the one in the middle, the two that we occupy start supporting that one.
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss at 09:56 AM
<http://robertdreyfuss.com/blog/2007/07/iraqi_opposition_meeting_in_sy.html> Iraqi opposition meeting in Syria cancelled
>From Reuters:
A large meeting of Iraqi rebel groups that was due
to be held in Damascus yesterday was cancelled
at the behest of Syria, delegates said.
Hundreds of delegates, including members of the
banned Iraqi Baath Party, officers in Saddam
Hussain's now defunct security forces and anti-US
tribal leaders, had gathered in Damascus to work
out a joint programme for groups opposed to the
continued presence of US forces in Iraq.
"The Syrians gently made it clear that this is not
the time for this," a senior Baath Party member said.
"The Americans and their Iraqi government clients
are intensifying their lies that Syria is behind terrorism
and attacks on innocent Iraqis, which we all condemn."
He was speaking at a meeting to announce the
cancellation of the conference at a hotel in the
outskirts of Damascus. The decision did not go down
well with most participants, especially those who had
travelled from Iraq.
Some delegates linked the meeting's cancellation to
the visit last week to Syria by Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
A communique issued after a meeting between
Ahmadinejad and President Bashar Al Assad last week
said the two leaders were adamant about the need to
end US occupation but back the Iraqi government and
"condemn terrorism against the Iraqi people and their
institutions".
Thousands of Iraqi Baathists and former security figures
have made Syria their base since the 2003 US invasion.
I find the link to Ahmadinejad's visit plausible.
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss at 01:18 PM
<http://robertdreyfuss.com/blog/2007/07/this_is_diplomacy.html> This is diplomacy?
Listening to Ambassador Ryan Crocker describe his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, their first encounter since May 28, makes you wonder what he thought he was accomplishing:
"I would not describe this as a shouting match
throughout, but we were real clear on where our
problems with their behavior were, and I just
didn't hesitate to let them know. It's up to them
to decide what they want to do about it. ... We
didn't pull our punches."
Is Crocker trying to show Bush what a tough guy he is? The idea that our problems in Iraq are caused by Iran is utterly nonsense. Iran's closest friends in Iraq are the same ones as President Bush's , namely, the Maliki regime, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and their allies. And Iran's enemies in Iraq are also the same ones that Bush is trying to combat: Al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgents, the Iraqi resistance, the Baath party, Saddam loyalists, and, of course, Muqtada al-Sadr's independent-minded army.
Sure, Iran could help us in Iraq. They could lean heavily on Maliki and the Hakims to make a deal with the Sunnis.But why should they? Iran knows we're leaving. Iran knows that it can work closely with the Iraqi Shia leadership when we're gone.
Come to think of it, I guess that does explain why Crocker was yelling.
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss on July 25, 2007 10:47 AM -- Yoshie