Jim Lobe in ATOL: Anti-Iran hawks win partial victory

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration had decided in principle to designate the IRGC, which, in addition to its military role, controls a number of large businesses that could be subject to sanctions, a terrorist group, but had yet to determine whether it would name the entire organization or only its elite unit, the Quds Force. That no announcement has yet been made is indicative of the continuing infighting around Bush.
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As introduced, the amendment, which according to several Capitol Hill sources was drafted by AIPAC, actually went considerably further, deploying language that some senators argued could be interpreted as authorizing war against Iran.
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the fact that the amendment was approved by a significant margin – and with the support of key Democrats, including Clinton and Majority Leader Harry Reid – is certain to be used by hawks within the administration as an indication of bipartisan support for a more aggressive policy toward Iran.

Posted by: b | Sep 28 2007 17:59 utc | 3

jony,
you mean the warmongers are just lyin’ about like cows in a field chewing their Quds?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 28 2007 19:08 utc | 5

Billmon sighting at Greenwald!

Posted by: Dick Durata | Sep 28 2007 20:16 utc | 7

@Dick Durata
Wow, that Asia Times link really sheds light on the big picture. Thanks!!
I especially took note of the following:

In focus is Turkmenistan, the energy-rich gas powerhouse of Central Asia. These have been manic weeks in Ashgabat. The melodrama is acute. But then the inscrutable space between victory and the chimera of victory has always been very narrow in Central Asia.
September 1 was the cutoff date that the Kremlin penciled in for the signing of agreements relating to the Russian-Kazakh-Turkmen gas deal that Putin had wrapped up during his sensational Central Asia summit on May 12. But September is drawing to a close, and not only have the agreements not been signed, the main protagonist, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, is unavailable in Ashgabat. He has proceeded on an extended visit to the United States, accompanied by bigwigs in the Turkmen oil and gas industry. It suddenly dawns that in one big throw of the dice, the US and the European Union are desperately playing themselves back into the game, which Moscow thought it had all but secured.

Ah, so that is why he had the red carpet reception from Bollinger…. Bollinger certainly knows how to play by the Rules… B hits the nail right on the head, astute as ever.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 28 2007 20:58 utc | 9

Very good catch. I don’t think it’s “pure psyops”. It’s another small but essential part of the slow buildup.
As is this, from the Arab Monitor:
Closed-door meetings with US Secretary of State on military upgrading of Gulf region

New York, 27 September – After holding closed-door meetings with member states of the European Union on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice convened the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council plus close allies Jordan and Egypt.
The meeting was finalized at forging awareness of “Iranian attempts to dominate the region”, as an unnamed senior State Department official told reporters, setting the stage for the allocation of a 20-billion dollar armaments package the US intend to sell the eight Arab states.

Posted by: Alamet | Sep 28 2007 22:55 utc | 11

“(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224;”
That is from the transcript of part “(b) Sense of Senate.–It is the sense of the Senate–“, from S.Amdt. 3017: To express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran.
The US Senate said that the US, SHOULD, designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. That implys that the IRGC has not yet been so designated.

Posted by: Mark Gaughan | Sep 29 2007 14:07 utc | 13

Whilst option 4 is definitely a contributory factor in this, there should be an option 6 which references internal Bush administration/US political elite battles over Iran policy, which is currently stuck in limbo.
Part of the “subterranean” struggle going on between Centcom and the political masters has been Fallon’s attempt to set up a marine incident liaison system with his Iranian counterparts – and this would, of necessity, mean formal communications between US naval forces in the Gulf and their IRGC counterparts ( in reality, there is a fair degree of communication on a practical level between the US navy and their Iranian counterparts in the Persian Gulf region already); obviously, if the IRGC are designated a terrorist entity, then this cannot happen.
It seems to me that Fallon, and I would presume that both the JCS and Gates are complicit in this, is trying to build a “firewall” to prevent the political “conflict” from degenerating into a military conflict by default or by accident.

Posted by: dan | Sep 29 2007 15:47 utc | 15

dan@15
I agree with your comment that Fallon wants a “firewall” in place, in order to mitigate unintened hostilities. And this may have been prompted by certain undisclosed events in the gulf.
And if this is the case, it suggests that the Iranians rather than “backing-off” from the USA military presence, may be “pushing-back” in certain ways. What this may mean is that the USA may have in actuality been presented with opportunities to escalate, but declined.
hence if Fallons declaration of peace is shared by the JCS & the SecDef, war is not imminent.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Sep 29 2007 22:15 utc | 17

jony @ 17
I am a little concerned at the willingness some express to think it is a good thing for the military to refuse to follow direction from civilian leadership. This is a very dangerous thing and will lead to a military dictatorship.
some may argue that it has already happened but I don’t think so. at this point in time I do not think the PTB are ready for that. they have the best of all worlds by having complete control without it being obvious. what could be better than that?

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 30 2007 10:45 utc | 19

In one of the many articles in early September on the ramped-up hostilities against Iran, it was stated that some in the administration want to designated only the Quds Force as a terrorist organization (this was painted as the “moderate” position vs. so designating the whole IRGC). I think it was an article in the Wash. Post that focused on infighting within the administration. Will look up later tonight when I have time.
Only the State Dept. can make the designation. Certainly the Senate action has strengthened the hand of the hard-liners, particularly as it names the whole IRGC rather than the Quds Force. But there has been no designation so far — Josh Marshall is just confused. Pat Lang was, I think, speaking sloppily rather than confused about the current status of the designation.
The new Sy Hersh article in the New Yorker about the revised Pentagon targeting on Iran — IRGC bases and facilities rather than nuclear-related installations etc. — provides more perspective about the possible ramifications of a State Dept. terrorist designation. In addition to the monetary and diplomatic consequences of such a designation, I think this administration would also cite it as justification for holding the Iranians abducted in Iraq in undisclosed locations and/or incommunicado.
This site had very little sympathy for Haleh Esfandiari’s situation during her house arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment in Iran. But I note that she is the only person with any platform in the U.S. media who has even acknowledged the situation of the Iranians abducted in Iraq by the U.S. military, much less called for their release.

Posted by: Nell | Sep 30 2007 21:43 utc | 21

I think it’s perfectly constitutional and appropriate for the brass to bring their concerns to Congress, which is the part of the government that is supposed to have the power to declare war. As a commenter at Greenwald’s said, that’s what Casey did recently when he asked to appear to give testimony about the readiness or lack of it of the Army.
Webb’s opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman resolution (and that of the fellow Armed Services Committee members who voted with him) was both substantive and procedural: They want there to be committee hearings so that Fallon and others can challenge the propaganda the Bush administration has been pushing about Iranian government support for militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
And if it comforts you at all, dan of steele, Hersh’s reading is that the brass’s support for a revised, IRGC-targeted attack on Iran is growing.
I’d welcome top-level resignations in protest of orders to attack Iran if the crazies win the argument in the administration — mainly because at this point that’s the only plausible source of popular and Congressional resistance to such a cataclysm.

Posted by: Nell | Sep 30 2007 22:06 utc | 23

Hi Nell, one of the things that caught my eye in Hersh’s piece was,

There were four possible responses to this Iranian activity, the European official said: to do nothing (“There would be no retaliation to the Iranians for their attacks; this would be sending the wrong signal”); to publicize the Iranian actions (“There is one great difficulty with this option—the widespread lack of faith in American intelligence assessments”); to attack the Iranians operating inside Iraq (“We’ve been taking action since last December, and it does have an effect”); or, finally, to attack inside Iran.

I can’t help but wonder why exactly this European is speaking in the first person plural…
The Iranian captives – I’m pretty sure I read about an official visit some months ago, probably on the Voices of Iraq newssite.

Posted by: Alamet | Sep 30 2007 23:52 utc | 25

From Hersh’s piece:

The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.
The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

Interesting that yesterday Petraeus seemed somewhat reluctant to agree with that. The LA Times wrote: Iran in deal to cut Iraq arms flow

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has secured a pledge from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to help cut off weapons, funding and other support to extremist militiamen in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said there were signs of a slight drop in the types of attacks associated with Shiite militants since the deal was reached in August, and he raised the possibility that U.S. and Iraqi officials might be able to do something in return. But he said it was too early to tell whether there had been a real reduction in cross-border support.

Posted by: b | Oct 1 2007 8:34 utc | 27

26 @Alamet: That ‘we’ is an interesting phrasing. If it were a Brit, I guess it’s technically true since the abduction/arrests were made under color of the “coalition” forces (as if any of them, including Britain, would get any say at all in the subsequent handling of the prisoners). But ‘European’ isn’t a term I’d think Hersh would use for Brits. What Euro countries still in Iraq? I thought Spain and Italy were fully out. Maybe this is the French, who clearly perceive themselves to be part of an anti-Iranian team now. Hadn’t known of any military cooperation in the Iraq theater, though of course they’re in Afghanistan.
Keep me posted via comments here or on my blog of any news you see on the captive Iranians. Thanks for the link on the training of UAE and Jordanian air force. And thanks to all here for all the useful info and links.

Posted by: Nell | Oct 1 2007 16:08 utc | 29

US Special Ops forces in Iran would be the mirror of IRGC, as described by US, wouldn’t they?
Why does one never hear in any media of all the US, British, & Israeli Spec Ops forces who have been busy since 2003 inside and along borders of Iran? Two key activities: 1) targetted attacks on military and political objectives; 2) training, arming, and stirring up trouble among the ethnic minorities who live along those borders.
An exhibit from the Congressional Research Service Report. Of course, Spec Ops are nowhere mentioned, but the fact that ethnic uprisings have increased in the past few years in Iran and the western-based supporters, acknowledged in the CRS report, are no accident.

As Sunni-Shiite tensions have worsened in the region, a minority of this group [(some 3 million, predominantly Shiite, Arabs, whose presence in Iran stretches back 12 centuries)], emboldened by Iraqi Arabs across the border, have pressed for greater autonomy in recent years. In the southern oil-rich province of Khuzestan, clashes erupted in March 2006 between police and pro-independence ethnic Arab Iranians,
resulting in three deaths and over 250 arrests (the protests were reportedly organized by a London-based group called The Popular Democratic Front of Ahwazi Arabs).
In April 2005, rumors spread that the authorities in Tehran planned to disperse Arabs in the area leading to protests that turned violent, according to Human Rights Watch.

The report has a useful map at the end, showing the location where large minority ethnic groups live in Iran.

Posted by: small coke | Oct 1 2007 17:05 utc | 31

read the sad, the very sad statement in the sydney morning herald – where australia (in its role no doubt of deputy sherrif) has “expressed an interest” in the invasion of iran
they are so craven – it is compelling, their cowardice before empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 1 2007 17:42 utc | 33