U.S. Terror Listing Would Squeeze Iran

U.S. Terror Listing Would Squeeze Iran

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Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007

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CAIRO, Egypt -- A Bush administration move to blacklist Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group would ratchet up pressure on businesses from construction to oil that the military corps is thought to control, analysts said Wednesday.

Such a step also would heighten the U.S. confrontation with Iran, giving a pretext for tougher action in the future, they said.

A U.S. official in Washington said the administration had not yet decided whether to sanction the entire Guards organization or just part of it. Either way, the move would be dramatic - the first time the U.S. has put a foreign government's military agency on the list, which includes the al-Qaida network and the Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The more confrontational U.S. stance comes after months of diplomatic wrangling over American accusations that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons in violation of its treaty commitments and supplying Shiite Muslim militants in Iraq. Tehran denies doing either.

"The move reflects that there is a lot of frustration that the diplomacy isn't yielding results," said Ray Takeyh, a specialist on Mideast policy at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted an anonymous foreign ministry official as saying the U.S. shift was "propaganda."

The designation would allow Washington to freeze U.S.-based assets of companies connected to the Guards, but those are believed to be minimal. More importantly, the listing would give the U.S. a cudgel to pressure foreign enterprises to cut off doing business with Guards-linked firms - the threat of being accused of supporting terrorism.

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The Revolutionary Guards is an elite force separate from Iran's regular military and has its own ground, naval and air units, with an estimated 200,000 men. It has also become increasingly involved in Iran's vital commercial affairs, with interests in oil, nuclear infrastructure and construction.

A terror listing would signal to Iran that the United States was ready to act against the Guards at some point, analysts said.

"Once they get classified as terrorist, American institutions will have the legitimacy they need to fight the Revolutionary Guards," said Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

"If this is a terrorist organization and it fires missiles in the (Persian) Gulf, then the U.S. would have an obligation to fight the Guards," he said. But Alani said he did not expect any such action soon, since American military forces are heavily involved in Iraq.

There was no immediate reaction from Iranian officials to the Bush administration's move to blacklist at least some of the Guards, which was first reported by The Washington Post.

The U.S. official said it was still being discussed whether to give the designation to the entire Guards or just its foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, which the U.S. accuses of funneling weapons and money to Shiite militants in Iraq who have killed American troops. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a final decision had not yet been made.

Under the plan, the Guards or the Quds Force would be named as a "specially designated global terrorist" group, a category created by President Bush in 2001 as part of broader measures after the Sept. 11 attacks to cut off funding for extremists.

"This a very strong, powerful signal," said Ali Ansari, director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland. "It's primarily a political decision and an economic strategy to move against the businesses of the Guards."

But the experts said the goal of cutting off the Guards' business dealings will likely be difficult to achieve.

For financial sanctions to be effective, the Europeans would have to come on board, as well as China and Russia, where the Revolutionary Guards are known to do business, Ansari said.

Mahan Abedin, director of research at the Center for the Study of Terrorism, an independent London-based organization, suspects the listing will be resisted in Europe, particularly by Germany and France, which he said have dealings with Guards companies.

"The Guards have an impressive financial and commercial network outside Iran," he said. The terror designation "might pass in the States, but it will be resisted very strongly in countries where companies are making money with Iran."

The United Nations has already imposed financial sanctions on a list of companies - some linked to the Revolutionary Guards - involved in Iran's nuclear program. The sanctions were imposed last year to punish Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian political analyst, said the impact from a terror listing would not be significant. "Iran has adjusted its system based on the past sanctions," he said.

Such a move, however, would be certain to heighten tensions with the Iranian government, which already accuses Washington of seeking to overthrow the Islamic leadership.

But by targeting the Guards specifically, the U.S. might be trying to symbolically separate the military force from Iran's political establishment, which has been talking with American officials in recent months on finding ways to ease Iraq's violence.

"Even if the Americans talk to the official Iran in Baghdad, the Guards are a separate structure, answerable to Iran's religious authority," Alani said.

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