Iran: the new Target in the War on Terrorism?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
It seems that John Edwards was right, when he criticized the U.S. Senate for last week’s resolution that urged the Bush administration to add Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. “I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran,” Edwards said—no doubt directing his criticism in the direction of Senator Clinton who had voted in favor of the resolution. Now, Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker that “there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning” and that during this heightened activity “senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization.” In other words, the White House did not need to be urged by the Senate to take this step. But even without Karl Rove in the White House, the political operators know the value of congressional backing in advance of a possible or likely military conflict. Hersh’s article explains the administration’s sudden interest in slapping the terrorist label on the Revolutionary Guards who are an important part of the designated state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. As I wrote in my previous post, in this case the terrorist label has not practical meaning at all.

According to Hersh, “The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. 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 (emphasis added). What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism."  

Last night I watched on C-SPAN an interview with Norman Podhoretz on his new book titled “World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism.” Just as he and his fellow-neo-conservatives pushed hard for and justify to this day the Iraq war, he is now a hawk on dealing with Iran. Like George W., he remains a believer in the promise of enforcing American-style democracy in the Middle East. Podhoretz, a foreign policy adviser in the Giuliani campaign, used a 45-minute meeting with Bush to urge the president to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to the Politico blog, “Podhoretz walked out of the meeting neither deterred nor assured the president would attack the Persian state. Yet prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York for the United Nations’ General Assembly, Podhoretz said he believes that ‘Bush is going to hit’ Iran before the end of his presidency.”

Hersh writes that in his interviews he was repeatedly told that “the President has yet to issue the ‘execute order’ that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued.”
The White House’s recent focus on the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the pertinent Senate vote are not assuring.

P.S. After I wrote this post, I learned from Colonel Patrick Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis blog and Oliver Willis's blog that Senator Hillary Clinton who made the wrong decision when she voted for the Iranian Guard Corps' designation, has now teamed up with Senator James Webb of Virginia to cosponsor legislation that would prohibit the use of funds for military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization (S. 759). I wished these two would team up on the 2008 presidential/ vice-presidential ticket.

Comments

[Brigitte]

Georgina, of course you are right. I am afraid though that many Americans would once again rally around the flag and the president in case of a military conflict with Iran-- particularly since it now looks that this would be sold as another phase of the "war on terrorism," not as preemptive actions against Iran's nuclear program.

[GEORGINA SCHALLER]

WHEN SO MANY AMERICANS ARE AGAINST THIS WAR AND NOW TO ESCALATE IT INTO IRAN, DO WE NO LONGER HAVE A DEMOCRACY WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE REPRESENTED. IF THEY START ANOTHER MESS AND IT IS NOT BACKED BY THE PEOPLE, THIS COULD LEAD TO MUCH TROUBLE IN THIS COUNTRY BY THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES. THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN DEMONSTRATING AGAINST THE WAR. WHY DO THE POLITICAL HEADS FEEL THE PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER IN CHARGE. WHAT HAPPENED TO A NATION OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE.