One shoe away from war with Iran
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Sanctions doomed to fail: Iran
Hindu - 14 hours ago
DUBAI: Iran has dismissed the American decision to impose fresh sanctions as an expression of hostility towards Tehran and as a move that was doomed to failure.
Iranians Dismiss New US Sanctions New York Times
Rice defends US sanctions on Iran as Russia objects Independent
Turkey hunts PKK rebels after Iraqi talks fail
SIRNAK, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish military planes scoured the Iraqi border for Kurdish rebel camps on Saturday, army sources said, after diplomatic talks in Ankara to avert a major cross-border operation into northern Iraq failed.
Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed late on Friday after Ankara rejected proposals by Iraqi Defence Minister General Abdel Qader Jassim for tackling Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq as insufficient. The delegation left on Saturday.
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by fighter jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, and mortars, on the frontier before a possible offensive against about 3,000 rebels using Iraq as a base from which to carry out deadly attacks in Turkey.
The United States, which was also represented at the talks, opposes a major incursion, fearing it could destabilise the relatively peaceful north of Iraq and the wider region.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) took up arms against Turkey in 1984, aiming to create an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict. In recent years the PKK has pushed for greater cultural and political rights.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan took a swipe at western countries on Saturday for not helping Turkey fight the PKK, criticising what he called an approach of "your terrorist is good, my terrorist is bad".
"We want to see our western friends by our side in our fight against terror," he told a conference in Istanbul. "Those who overlook terrorism are in cooperation with terrorism."
ERDOGAN-BUSH MEETING
Erdogan played down comments by Turkey's top general that the army was waiting for him to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on November 5 before launching a major incursion.
U.S.-Turkish ties have deteriorated sharply in recent weeks.
General Yasar Buyukanit was quoted by Turkish media on Friday as saying the meeting was very important and NATO's second largest army would hold off until Erdogan returned.
Senior Turkish diplomats say Erdogan has given Washington and Baghdad a limited time to show concrete results or steps to be taken against the PKK. The meeting in Washington will be the last chance, they told Reuters.
Any major offensive, expected to involve ground and air forces, would first have to be approved by the government.
"I don't know what will happen before the American trip," Erdogan said late on Friday. "We are in a sensitive state all the time."
On Saturday Buyukanit, in a speech to mark Monday's Republic Day, said the army would fight until it had destroyed the PKK.
"We feel the pain of our martyred heroes deeply. But that pain increases our determination to fight," the text of his speech read. "Those who make us suffer cannot even imagine the suffering we will inflict on them; on this we are determined."
Erdogan, under growing public pressure, has repeatedly said Turkey will not tolerate any more attacks by the PKK, which has killed about 40 people in the last month.
Army sources told Reuters on Saturday that military planes were making reconnaissance flights along the mountainous border to photograph PKK camps in northern Iraq. Helicopters were patrolling villages and soldiers sweeping for mines.
In the southeastern city of Sirnak on Saturday about 1,000 people demonstrated against the PKK, which in its latest major attack killed 12 soldiers and said it took eight prisoner. Security was tight, with sharpshooters on rooftops and village guard militiamen present.
"For every 12 martyrs, 12,000 more Turkish martyrs are born," chanted protesters, who came from all over the province.
The military has recently carried out as many as 24 limited operations into northern Iraq against the PKK but no major land incursion, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said on Friday. Turkish helicopter gunships and F-16 jets have attacked PKK positions inside Iraq in recent days.
Analysts question whether a major military assault into northern Iraq would be successful, as past ones have failed to dislodge the PKK, whose members are also in Turkey.
Ankara had asked Iraq to hand over PKK members, but the central government has little control over semi-autonomous northern Iraq, run by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The KRG, run by Masoud Barzani, says it has no control over the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation in the United States, Turkey and the European Union.
Barzani has vowed to fight any Turkish incursion.
October 27 Regional Rallies
VIEW THE UFPJ VIDEO FOR OCTOBER 27th!
Friends and Members of Veterans For Peace,
In just four days, thousands of us will take to the streets once again to put an end to this war and occupation. It's been over four years since the invasion of Iraq. Over 3834 military personel have been killed in Iraq and thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed.
Instead of making friends and bringing democracy to the middle east, the war and occupation is creating chaos in Iraq and enemies around the world. It's time the American public really hear the truth about the devastation of this war - the service people who will suffer with traumatic brain injuries, unjust VA services, and multiple tours of duty ripping families apart. The Iraqis of course are suffering, and dying, on our account. They cannot travel without fear, have a high unemployment rate, spotty electricty, and many have left the country and are now refugees.
IT'S TIME WE PUT AN END TO THIS DESTRUCTION!
THINGS YOU CAN DO:
- Attend one of the 11 rallies (see locations here)
- View Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation video. Go to www.oct27.org/ brave_new_ video to sign up and become a part of the movement to bring our troops home and end the war. Video thanks to Brave New Foundation.
- Check with your chapter members to organize transportation
- Contact your local media and let them know that you are attending the rally. If you are a member of Veterans For Peace - tell them so!
WE'LL SEE YOU IN THE STREETS!
VETERANS WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE.
Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105, 314-725-6005
www.veteransforpeac e.org
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Any sane person hopes that writer Chris Floyd is wrong about all of this, so I will suggest a "rosier" - but still disastrous - scenario. By that I mean it's short of WWIII.
Awhile back, I heard a commentator suggest that the war in Iraq is not so much about taking that country's oil as it is about CONTROLLING THE PRICE of oil. Considering that Bush-Cheney and their buddies are all from the oil industry, they clearly want HIGH oil prices, of course, no matter how grave the harm to everyone else.
"When President Bush took office on January 20, 2001, the national average gas price was $1.46 per gallon. Six and a half years later, on August 27, 2007, the national average gas price had jumped to $2.76, roughly 89% HIGHER. Compounded annually, this represents about a 10% jump each year Bush has been in office." (http://www.dailyfue leconomytip. com/ )
Oil was $22.81 a barrel in 2002.
"Oil prices moved above $90 A BARREL for the first time yesterday, setting a record high on the back of renewed political tensions between the US and Iran and fresh concern over supply shortages in the US ahead of the winter months.
Analysts say the recent surge means oil prices COULD REACH $100, while further strain is placed on motorists. (http://www.guardian .co.uk/oil/ story/0,, 2200334,00. html)
Also see Bush Oil Buddies Divvy Up Iraq (Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears) at http://www.huffingt onpost.com/ jackson-williams /bush-oil- buddies-divvy- up_b_65361. html
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People get ready -- one shoe away from war with Iran
by Chris Floyd for Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Thursday October 25, 2007
This is the sound of one shoe dropping:
"Ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran, the United States on Thursday designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferater of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Qods force a supporter of terrorism. In total, Washington slapped sanctions on more than 20 Iranian companies, major banks and individuals, as well as the Defense Ministry, in a bid to pressure Tehran to halt its nuclear program and curb its 'terrorist' activities."
The other shoe, when it falls, will sound something like this:
"At least 26 U.S. troops are reported dead after an assault on their small base near the Iranian border this morning, said Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American forces in Iraq. While details are still sketchy at the moment, Gen. Petraeus said it was "almost certain" that the attackers were units of Iran's elite Qods force, an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"President Bush is now consulting his national security team, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "When we have all the facts, then the president will decide upon the appropriate response. For now, our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of those killed in this horrible sneak attack."
Administration officials have been warning of possible "revenge attacks" for months after President Bush formally designated the Qods force and the IRGC as terrorist organizations in October. Just last Thursday, Bush cited a "flood" of intelligence reports indicating "an aggressive build-up of Iranian firepower" along key points of the Iran-Iraq border. The president said the intelligence was copious, credible and disturbing: "Our guys tell me their hair is on fire, reading this stuff."
In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute the next day, Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a stern warning to Tehran: "Armed retaliation would be an act of madness on the part of Iran's tyrannical leaders. But we are dealing with an irrational enemy, so we must be prepared for anything. And let me assure you, and the mullahs: we are prepared."
Denouncing what he called "a new Pearl Harbor," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., introduced a measure this morning that would grant formal Senate approval to "whatever action the Commander-in- Chief deems necessary to protect our troops, and our nation, from Iranian aggression."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., signaled his support for "something along those lines," but said he would hold off bringing it to the Senate floor "until we see what the president has to tell us." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she too would act as soon as the president had made his decision, adding, "Today there are no Democrats or Republicans; there are only Americans united in our grief and our resolve."
Look for it, get yourself ready -- it's coming.
***
Read this at http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2007/10/25/ iran/index. html
The Muslim brotherhood/ fraternity again proved to be cowards as the lightning attack by Israel in 1967 reaching outskirts of Cairo in 1967 and no Muslim Country coming to support Egypt.
You yourself explain why Syria has not retaliated or its strong ally Iran? All Muslim Countries are scared of "getting bombed to stone age" as Bush threatened Musharraf when he dilly dallied whether to be with US or not after 9/11.
Abdul Wahid Osman Belal wrote:
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 23:24:58 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Muslim News] Latest issue ofThe Muslim News newspaper includes
discrimination in anti terror laws
25 October 2007
Latest issue of The Muslim News newspaper – includes – discriminatory anti terror laws; attacks on Somali community and other Islamophobic attacks; how Israel can get away with bombing yet another sovereign sate; persecution of Uighur Muslims in China; and a lot more…..
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3180
Editorial
Israel’s uncontested impunity
Israel bombed Syria on September 6, but not even one country criticised the attack as being unlawful against a sovereign country. There was no provocation from Syria, nor had Syria threatened to attack Israel. The UN Security Council, which is supposed to maintain the peace and international security, turned an obnoxious blind eye to the bombing by remaining silent and so did the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3178
Attacks on Somali community Islamophobic, says resident
By Merat Tafreshi and Elham Asaad Buaras
A Somali resident forced out of a Bristol council estate has branded her experience in the area as Islamophobic.
A total of 14 households, twelve of them Somali, are being moved out of Bristol council estate due to targeted attacks by local residents. A further two Asian households have also asked to move elsewhere
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3179
Discriminatory anti terror laws?
By Elham Asaad Buaras
In the wake of the conviction of the ‘Cambridge letter bomber’ last month, The Muslim News set out to find why, unlike numerous cases involving Muslims, Miles Cooper who had - searched the internet, amassed explosives and successfully activated bombs to make a political point - was not arrested nor charged under the new terror legislation.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3187
Muslim boy gouged in Leicester
By Elham Asaad Buaras
The father of a Leicester boy, who was repeatedly gouged in the chest and stomach with an unknown object, has made a second appeal for witnesses to come forward.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3191
War on terror ‘counterproductive’
By Ala Abbas
One of Britain’s leading global security think tanks has condemned the current policies of the ‘war on terror’ as a ‘disaster’ in its 2007 International Security Report
The Oxford Research Group (ORG), an independent non-governmental organisation seeking to bring about positive change on issues of national and international security, released its report entitled Sustainable Security
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3188
Conservatives advised to rethink ideas on Muslims
By Merat Tafreshi
The Conservative Muslim Forum has advised the main opposition party to rethink some of its strategies concerning Muslims. The Forum stated that they “broadly welcomed” the report in July on “An Unquiet World” by the Party’s National and International Security Policy Group and recognised that all citizens of the UK regardless of race and religion share the same interests in British national security. But they stressed their background as Muslims in Britain gave them a unique perspective on some of the issues.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3197
Highlighting persecution of Uighur Muslims
By Ahmed J Versi
Rebiya Kadeer, China’s most well-known dissident, made a brief visit to the UK earlier this month to highlight the plight of Uighur Muslims. “My visit is to raise awareness of the suffering of Uighur people amongst the British people and British politicians,” Kadeer, who is the President of World Uighur Congress, told The Muslim News
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3195
Man avoids jail over hijab assault
By Elham Asaad Buaras
A man who pulled a hijab from the head of a Muslim woman narrowly avoided jail on September 20. Damien French, 21, from Rhyl, North Wales, shouted Islamophobic obscenities as he assaulted the 23-year-old victim.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3198
Stop & searches result in 1.5% arrests
By Ala Abbas
Police officers carried out a total of no less than 111,867 stops and searches across Britain under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 since its implementation in February 2001 until March 2005. The stops, however, have resulted in only 1,515 arrests, including arrests for non-terrorism related offences.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3196
Brown asked to review support for Jewish charity
By Elham Asaad Buaras
Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has been asked to reverse his agreement to become a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) UK, also known as the Perpetual Fund for Israel. Brown will now follow his predecessor, Tony Blair, who was also a patron.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3192
Suspected terrorist buried at undisclosed location
By Ahmed J Versi
27-year-old Bangalore engineer who sustained 90 per cent burns during a botched attack on Glagow airport on June 30, was buried nine weeks after his painful and lingering death, it was disclosed on October 9.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3201
Councillor blasts media coverage of burial debate
By Elham Asaad Buaras
A Tower Hamlets councillor has criticised the mainstream media for provoking division among the Muslim and non-Muslim London community over burial space.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3189
Is Britain now a “Big Brother” nation?
By Merat Tafreshi
More than half of Britain’s 60 million population believe that the UK has become a “surveillance society” since the advent of the so-called war on terrorism, according to a new poll this month.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3194
Muslims in state of anxiety
By Ahmed J Versi
“Muslim ummah in the West is passing though a very critical period, many of whom are in as state of anxiety,” said Secretary General of the Union of Muslim Organisations (UMO), Dr Syed Aziz Pasha.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3199
Muslim worker settles out of court
By Shahidul Choudhury
A Muslim chef who claimed he was unfairly sacked from Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in Chelsea has reached an out of court settlement.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3200
Muslims with mental health problems face more discrimination
By Elham Asaad Buaras
Almost half of Britons (47%) say they would not want to live next door to a Muslim person with mental health problems.
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ paper/index. php?article= 3193
Lack of joined up thinking in changes to ESOL
By Sarah Sheriff
A wave of protests against Government plans to cut free English classes have resulted in some concessions being given.
Oct 27, 2007
Explosive charge blows up in US's face
By Gareth Porter
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Middle_East/ IJ27Ak05. html
WASHINGTON - When the United States military command accused the
Iranian Quds Force in January of providing the armor-piercing EFPs
(explosively formed penetrators) that were killing US troops, it
knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for
years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq
shows.
The record also shows that the US command had considerable evidence
that the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had received
the technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah,
rather than Iran.
The command, operating under close White House supervision, chose to
deny these facts in making the dramatic accusation that became the
main rationale for the present aggressive US stance toward Iran.
Although the George W Bush administration initially limited the
accusation to the Quds Force, it has recently begun to assert that
top officials of the Iranian regime are responsible for arms that
are killing US troops.
British and US officials observed from the beginning that the EFPs
being used in Iraq closely resembled the ones used by Hezbollah
against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, both in their design and
the techniques for using them.
Hezbollah was known as the world's most knowledgeable specialists in
EFP manufacture and use, having perfected this during the 1990s in
the military struggle with Israeli forces in Lebanon. It was widely
recognized that it was Hezbollah that had passed on the expertise to
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups after the second
Intifada began in 2000.
US intelligence also knew that Hezbollah was conducting the training
of Mahdi Army militants on EFPs. In August 2005, Newsday published a
report from correspondent Mohammed Bazzi that Shi'ite fighters had
begun in early 2005 to copy Hezbollah techniques for building the
bombs, as well as for carrying out roadside ambushes, citing both
Iraqi and Lebanese officials.
In late November 2006, a senior intelligence official told both CNN
and the New York Times that Hezbollah troops had trained as many as
2,000 Mahdi Army fighters in Lebanon.
The fact that the Mahdi Army's major military connection has always
been with Hezbollah rather than Iran would also explain the presence
in Iraq of the PRG-29, a shoulder-fired anti-armor weapon. Although
US military briefers identified it last February as being Iranian-
made, the RPG-29 is not manufactured by Iran but by the Russian
Federation.
According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, RPG-29s were imported
from Russia by Syria, then passed on to Hezbollah, which used them
with devastating effectiveness against Israeli forces in the 2006
war. According to a June 2004 report on the well-informed military
website Strategypage. com, RPG-29s were already turning up in
Iraq, "apparently smuggled across the Syrian border".
The earliest EFPs appearing in Iraq in 2004 were so professionally
made that they were probably constructed by Hezbollah specialists,
according to a detailed account by British expert Michael Knights in
Jane's Intelligence Review last year.
By late 2005, however, the British command had already found clear
evidence that the Iraqi Shi'ites themselves were manufacturing their
own EFPs. British Army Major General J B Dutton told reporters in
November 2005 that the bombs were of varying degrees of
sophistication.
Some of the EFPs required a "reasonably sophisticated factory", he
said, while others required only a simple workshop, which he
observed, could only mean that some of them were being made inside
Iraq.
After British convoys in Maysan province were attacked by a series
of EFP bombings in late May 2006, Knights recounts, British forces
discovered a factory making them in Majar al-Kabir north of Basra in
June.
In addition, the US military also had its own forensic evidence by
the autumn of 2006 that EFPs used against its vehicles had been
manufactured in Iraq, according to Knights. He cites photographic
evidence of EFP strikes on US armored vehicles that "typically shows
a mixture of clean penetrations from fully-formed EFP and
spattering ..." That pattern reflected the fact that the locally
made EFPs were imperfect, some of them forming the required shape to
penetrate but some of them failing to do so.
Then US troops began finding EFP factories. Journalist Andrew
Cockburn reported in the Los Angeles Times in mid-February that US
troops had raided a Baghdad machine shop in November 2006 and
discovered "a pile of copper discs, five inches in diameter, stamped
out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order".
In a report on February 23, NBC Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf
quoted "senior military officials" as saying that US forces
had "been finding an increasing number of the advanced roadside
bombs being not just assembled but manufactured in machine shops
here".
Nevertheless, the Bush administration decided to put the blame for
the EFPs squarely on the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps, after Bush agreed in autumn 2006 to target the Quds
Force within Iran to make Iranian leaders feel vulnerable to US
power. The allegedly exclusive Iranian manufacture of EFPs was the
administration' s only argument for holding the Quds Force
responsible for their use against US forces.
At the February 11 military briefing presenting the case for this
claim, one of the US military officials declared, "The explosive
charges used by Iranian agents in Iraq need a special manufacturing
process, which is available only in Iran." The briefer insisted that
there was no evidence that they were being made in Iraq.
That lynchpin of the administration' s EFP narrative began to break
down almost immediately, however. On February 23, NBC's Arraf
confronted Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who had been out in front
in January promoting the new Iranian EFP line, with the information
she had obtained from other senior military officials that an
increasing number of machine shops manufacturing EFPs had been
discovered by US troops.
Odierno began to walk the Iranian EFP story back. He said the EFPs
had "started to come from Iran", but he admitted "some of the
technologies" were "probably being constructed here".
The following day, US troops found yet another EFP factory near
Baqubah, with copper discs that appeared to be made with a high
degree of precision, but which could not be said with any certainty
to have originated in Iran.
The explosive expert who claimed at the February briefing that EFPs
could only be made in Iran was then made available to the New York
Times to explain away the new find. Major Marty Weber now backed
down from his earlier statement and admitted that there were "copy
cat" EFPs being machined in Iraq that looked identical to those
allegedly made in Iran to the untrained eye.
Weber insisted that such Iraqi-made EFPs had slight imperfections
which made them "much less likely to pierce armor". But NBC's Arraf
had reported the previous week that a senor military official had
confirmed to her that the EFPs made in Iraqi shops were indeed quite
able to penetrate US armor. The impact of those weapons "isn't as
clean", the official said, but they are "almost as effective" as the
best-made EFPs.
The idea that only Iranian EFPs penetrate armor would be a surprise
to Israeli intelligence, which has reported that EFPs manufactured
by Hamas guerrillas in their own machine shops during 2006 had
penetrated eight inches of Israeli steel armor in four separate
incidents in September and November, according to the Intelligence
and Terrorism Center in Tel Aviv.
The Arraf story was ignored by the news media, and the Bush
administration has continued to assert the Iranian EFP charge as
though it had never been questioned.
It soon became such an accepted part of the media narrative on Iran
and Iraq that the only issue about which reporters bother to ask
questions is whether the top leaders of the Iranian government have
approved the alleged Quds Force operation.
Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst.
His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the
Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.
(Inter Press Service)
Oct 27, 2007
THE ROVING EYE
'War on terror' is now war on Iran
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Middle_East/ IJ27Ak03. html
Scores of middle-aged, mild-mannered, bearded gentlemen - the
technocrats of the Iranian military bourgeoisie - are now officially
enjoying the status of "terrorists" , at least from a Washington
point of view.
The demonization of Iran drags on relentlessly as the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been officially branded a
proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Quds
Force a supporter of terrorism. The latter has for months been
accused of supplying Shi'ite militias in Iraq with weapons that are
killing US soldiers.
The new round of US sanctions also targets Iran's Defense Ministry,
as well as three major Iranian banks accused of financing "the usual
suspects"; Shi'ite militias in Iraq, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah
in Lebanon and - absurd as it may sound - the Taliban in
Afghanistan. The banks are the state-owned Bank Melli, Bank Mellat
and Bank Saderat.
The US State and Treasury departments jointly announced the new
sanctions, citing the Islamic Republic's defiance over its continued
nuclear program and its alleged involvement with terrorist
organizations. The new restrictions are unilateral and aim to
prevent businesses and other groups both within and outside the US -
but that do work within the US - from dealing with individuals who
are part of any of the banks, military forces and other
organizations in Iran that were named, including the IRGC.
The move follows President George W Bush's comments last week that
implied that Iran obtaining nuclear weapons could lead to "World War
III", and Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on Sunday in which he
said that "the international community is prepared to impose serious
consequences" if Iran does not comply with demands.
Sanctions do bite - as some Iranian conservatives have started to
publicly admit. But Tehran won't be in a hurry to mount a hug-and-
kiss expedition to Washington. Cuba has been fighting a US blockade
and sanctions for almost five decades - and has managed to survive
with dignity.
The more than 20 companies and individuals affiliated with the IRGC
that are now excluded from the American financial system - and nodes
of the international banking system - will still have plenty of
opportunities of doing business with Russia, China or Arab
monarchies. They may barter. They may exchange goods with services.
And they may resort to the black market.
As far as Moscow and Beijing are concerned, they are hardly
shivering with fear in the face of renewed State
Department "warnings" to China not to invest and Russia not to sell
weapons to Iran.
This new round of sanctions is just one side of the demonization of
Iran campaign - as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was once
again spinning the other side of the same old scratched vinyl, that
of preventing "one of the world's worst regimes from acquiring the
world's most dangerous weapons". The International Atomic Energy
Agency still has not found any evidence Iran is developing a nuclear
program for military use, and has called for the further engagement
of Iran, rather than its isolation.
Meet the terrorists
The IRGC was founded by a decree of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the
leader of the Islamic Revolution, in May 1979. In the beginning, in
pure revolutionary fashion, it was the "eyes and ears" of the
revolution, its trusted popular army fighting the enemy within -
which could be, according to revolutionary whim, the deposed Shah's
supporters, communist militants, ethnic minorities like the Kurds in
the northwest or Arabs in oil-rich Khuzestan province, or Western-
educated, influential intellectuals.
The early revolutionaries in 1979 had two fears: a military coup
orchestrated by remaining Shah supporters, or an attack by the US.
What happened was the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), started by Saddam
Hussein with the hardly silent support of the US and the West. So
the popular army immediately had to be converted into a parallel -
and soon very powerful - fighting army.
Almost 1 million IRGC people - pasdaran (soldiers) and bassijis
(young militiamen under their control) - died in that horrendous
war, and are today revered as martyrs.
The IRGC today numbers, according to their bureau in Tehran, about
130,000. Ground forces have 105,000 soldiers - four divisions, six
mechanized divisions and one marine brigade. The air force has 5,000
men and the navy 20,000, with an undisclosed number of vessels
equipped with anti-ship missiles. Three separate units man the
Shahab-3 missiles, with a 1,500-kilometer range; the new Shahab-4
has a range of 2,000 kilometers.
The Quds Force of the IRGC - the key target of US ire - may have as
many as 15,000 men. They are specialists in surveillance and
special operations. It is the Quds Force that trained Iraq's Badr
Brigades, the paramilitary arm of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council,
the party of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim allied with the US. The Badr are
firmly ensconced at the Iraqi Ministry of Interior - and it is they
who have spawned death squads and accelerated ethnic cleansing in
Baghdad.
