10/03/07 "Asia
Times" -- -
In the aftermath of the US House of Representatives' recent
resolution branding the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
as terrorist, the White House is reportedly poised to formally
place it on the terrorist list of the US State Department, with
ramifications to follow, such as a freeze on the IRGC's assets
wherever the US can get its hands on them.
This is considered a small victory by anti-Iran hawks, who know
the important side-effects of this initiative in inching the US
closer
to war against Iran. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour
Hersh, meanwhile, has written about a "policy shift" in
Washington. This involves a thirst for confrontation with Iran
less on the grounds of Iran's nuclear program and more as a
result of the situation in Iraq, where Iran has gained
substantial influence, to the detriment of US-led coalition
forces.
Justifying the anti-IRGC resolution in the name of an attempt to
protect US soldiers, various lawmakers, such as Senator Joe
Lieberman and Congresman Tom Lantos have accused the IRGC of
supporting terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the
Israeli-occupied territories. They dismiss the small yet loud
dissent by fellow legislators, such as Senator Chuck Hagel and
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, that this is a misguided initiative
that could increase the possibility of war with Iran.
The case for the designation of the IRGC as terrorists has been
built on thin empirical grounds and even thinner legal grounds,
and is bound to complicate the US's Iraq policy. The arguments
against the move can be listed as:
1. Illicit use of the term terrorist: Following
the United Nations' definition of terrorism as the use of
violence against unarmed civilians for political objectives, it
is difficult to see how the activities of the IRGC alleged by
the US in Iraq and Afghanistan can be fitted into this
definition. Per the recent testimony of top US commanders, the
IRGC, particularly its elite Quds Force, has been giving arms
and explosives to Shi'ite militias which, in turn, use them
against US forces. Assuming this is true, given the fact that
Shi'ite (or Sunni) militias opposed to the US military presence
are not referred to by the US itself as terrorists, but
"insurgents", the question is: Why then brand the Iranian
backers of those insurgents as a step worse than those directly
fighting the US, and name them terrorists?
2. Scant empirical proof: The US has until now
failed to lay out the facts against Iran and that is one reason
the senior leadership in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
certain members of the international community, are not going
along with the US's accusations against Iran. A case in point is
Chris Alexander, the deputy UN representative to Kabul, who had
this to say recently: "We are, quite frankly, trying to
encourage everyone to recommit to having a sense of proportion,
to putting the reality of the insecurity of Afghanistan into
proportion. That means not saying that Iran is the principle
source of arms shipments to the Taliban. That's simply not
true."
In Iraq, the US has reportedly apprehended a number of Iranian
operatives linked to the Quds Force, yet none of those
individuals, including the five doing consular work in Ibril
until kidnapped by US special forces nearly a year ago, has
admitted to the crime alleged by the US. Nor has the US military
introduced any documents that corroborate the allegations. The
question, then, is how to justify the IRGC's terrorist labeling
in the absence of viable hard proof?
3. Questionable assumptions about the IRGC: Key to
the designation of the IRGC's designation as terrorists is the
assumption that it, and the Quds Force in particular, are
"rogue" or "government-within-government" operatives. To
paraphrase recent articles in the Washington Times and by the
Council on Foreign Relations, they are "mafia-type"
institutions. The problem with this is that, again, there is
little about Iranian polity that endorses it.
The IRGC is very influential and some members of Parliament (Majlis),
the cabinet, government ministries and local administrations
have backgrounds in the IRGC. This actually shows the depth of
integration of the IRGC (past and present) in formal
government structures.
The much-scrutinized role of the IRGC in the economy, on the
other hand, can be similarly interpreted as further support for
the counter-argument that with the growing involvement of those
guards in the formal and informal economy, their vested economic
interests dictate more and more mainstream, as opposed to
terroristic and subversive, behavior.
4. Questionable designation over Lebanon: Although
the IRGC has played a prominent role in supporting Lebanon's
Hezbollah since the early 1980s, calling the IRGC terrorists
because of this is problematic. This in light of Hezbollah's
powerful mass base, its political clout and its participation in
parliamentary politics of Lebanon.
Hence, to designate Hezbollah as terrorist because of its
occasional face-offs with the Israelis, is to turn this
terminology into a propaganda tool that ignores important
realities in the Middle East. Indeed, by labeling the IRGC as
terrorists, the US will probably torpedo its own slow coming to
terms with Hezbollah's staying power.
5. Overlooking history: US and Israeli hawks don't
like to hear this, but in both Bosnia-Herzegovina during the
early and mid-1990s and more recently in Afghanistan after
September 11, 2001, the US military and the IRGC interacted
positively. In Bosnia, invited by the Bosnian government under
siege, the IRGC
trained and armed Bosnian fighters, with the tacit blessing of
the White House. They continued to provide humanitarian support
even after their military role ended shortly after the signing
of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which called for the exit of
foreign forces.
Similarly, in Afghanistan, where the IRGC played a prominent
role in supporting the anti-Taliban and anti-al-Qaeda Northern
Alliance led by the late Ahmad Shah Masoud long before the US
cavalry arrived in 2001, US and IRGC commanders met repeatedly
both before and after Kabul's fall into the hands of the
Northern Alliance.
6. Negative costs outweigh benefits: Given Iran's
stern reaction to this initiative, such as reciprocating by
branding the US military and the Central Intelligence Agency as
terrorist, there is little doubt that this initiative will have
a corrosive influence on the diplomatic track between the US and
Iran and pave the way to the nightmare scenario of physical
confrontation. Dissenting voices in the US Congress have already
warned of this.
For one thing, this action will at a minimum put a huge dent in
the progress already made in the US-Iran dialogue over Iraq in
the form of a joint committee of experts to discuss
security-related issues. If the US is correct and Iran's
intelligence operatives in Iraq are from the Quds Force, then
the question becomes: How can the US expect to enlist Iran's
cooperation on security and intelligence matters when it has
branded its potential counterparts across the table terrorists?
7. No chance of an "incident at sea" agreement:
The IRGC is not a one-dimensional army of 125,000 plus soldiers.
It has an air force and a navy, in tandem with the regular
Iranian army and navy. They are also active as Iran's coast
guards, as seen in their temporary detention of British sailors
this year.
This means that the terrorist labeling of the IRGC could be a
catalyst for confrontation between the US Navy and IRGC in the
Persian Gulf and nearby waters, especially the disputed waters
shared by Iran and Iraq. Moreover, the possibility of an
"incident at sea" agreement between the US and Iran will be
substantially reduced when and if Washington formally
categorizes the IRGC as terrorist, thus depriving the region of
effective conflict-prevention mechanisms.
8. Difficult enforcement measures: As
"terrorists", the entire IRGC ensemble, including its purely
civilian projects, many of which are in partnership with foreign
contractors, will come under the purview of US anti-terrorist
measures. These include the IRGC's management of the new
Mehrabad International Airport and IRGC-controlled
telecommunication companies, not to mention a host of medical,
purely charitable, activities.
The IRGC is partly responsible for the health care of about
60,000 victims of Iraq's chemical attacks in the 1980s, as well
as thousands of other war veterans who sustained long-term
injuries in the was with Iraq.
There will be complicating effects on European and other
companies doing business with the non-military branches of the
IRGC, for instance, those involved in building houses for the
large number of families of members of the IRGC "martyred" in
the war with Iraq.
So the terror designation will affect the IRGC's charitable
foundations, which will swell anti-American anger in Iran to new
heights.
9. Terrorist label helps Iranian hardliners: US
hawks may have intended the designation as a wrench to cause
divisions within Iran, but the exact opposite has already
happened. The IRGC are now even more popular than before,
basking in their front-line status against the "great Satan".
And political moderates are unhappy with yet another unwise US
move that provides a political bonanza for their competition.
Having said that, it is an error to say that the entire IRGC
consists of ideological zealots and hardliners, given that most
of its rank and file supported moderate former president
Mohammad Khatami in his re-election bid six years ago. But the
likely net result of the terrorist labeling will be to tilt the
majority of IRGC members and their families and friends toward
more militant tendencies.
10. Wrong in international law: As mentioned
above, the designation does not not fit well with the UN's
definition of terrorism. And it raises serious questions in
terms of the UN charter, which calls on member states to resolve
disputes through "pacific settlement".
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview
Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism",
Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer
2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's
nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts
Versus Fiction.
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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