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2 THE ROVING
EYE 'War on terror' is now war on
Iran By Pepe Escobar
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
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