Page 2 of 2 Iran terror label bites
deep By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Middle East. Indeed, by labeling the IRGC as terrorists, the US will probably
torpedo its own slow coming to terms with Hezbollah's staying power.
5. Overlooking history: US and Israeli hawks don't like to hear
this, but in both Bosnia-Herzegovina during the early and mid-1990s and more
recently in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, the US military and the IRGC
interacted positively. In Bosnia, invited by the Bosnian government under
siege, the IRGC
trained and armed Bosnian fighters, with the tacit blessing of the White House.
They continued to provide humanitarian support even after their military role
ended shortly after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which called for
the exit of foreign forces.
Similarly, in Afghanistan, where the IRGC played a prominent role in supporting
the anti-Taliban and anti-al-Qaeda Northern Alliance led by the late Ahmad Shah
Masoud long before the US cavalry arrived in 2001, US and IRGC commanders met
repeatedly both before and after Kabul's fall into the hands of the Northern
Alliance.
6. Negative costs outweigh benefits: Given Iran's stern reaction
to this initiative, such as reciprocating by branding the US military and the
Central Intelligence Agency as terrorist, there is little doubt that this
initiative will have a corrosive influence on the diplomatic track between the
US and Iran and pave the way to the nightmare scenario of physical
confrontation. Dissenting voices in the US Congress have already warned of
this.
For one thing, this action will at a minimum put a huge dent in the progress
already made in the US-Iran dialogue over Iraq in the form of a joint committee
of experts to discuss security-related issues. If the US is correct and Iran's
intelligence operatives in Iraq are from the Quds Force, then the question
becomes: How can the US expect to enlist Iran's cooperation on security and
intelligence matters when it has branded its potential counterparts across the
table terrorists?
7. No chance of an "incident at sea" agreement: The IRGC is not a
one-dimensional army of 125,000 plus soldiers. It has an air force and a navy,
in tandem with the regular Iranian army and navy. They are also active as
Iran's coast guards, as seen in their temporary detention of British sailors
this year.
This means that the terrorist labeling of the IRGC could be a catalyst for
confrontation between the US Navy and IRGC in the Persian Gulf and nearby
waters, especially the disputed waters shared by Iran and Iraq. Moreover, the
possibility of an "incident at sea" agreement between the US and Iran will be
substantially reduced when and if Washington formally categorizes the IRGC as
terrorist, thus depriving the region of effective conflict-prevention
mechanisms.
8. Difficult enforcement measures: As "terrorists", the entire
IRGC ensemble, including its purely civilian projects, many of which are in
partnership with foreign contractors, will come under the purview of US
anti-terrorist measures. These include the IRGC's management of the new
Mehrabad International Airport and IRGC-controlled telecommunication companies,
not to mention a host of medical, purely charitable, activities.
The IRGC is partly responsible for the health care of about 60,000 victims of
Iraq's chemical attacks in the 1980s, as well as thousands of other war
veterans who sustained long-term injuries in the was with Iraq.
There will be complicating effects on European and other companies doing
business with the non-military branches of the IRGC, for instance, those
involved in building houses for the large number of families of members of the
IRGC "martyred" in the war with Iraq.
So the terror designation will affect the IRGC's charitable foundations, which
will swell anti-American anger in Iran to new heights.
9. Terrorist label helps Iranian hardliners: US hawks may have
intended the designation as a wrench to cause divisions within Iran, but the
exact opposite has already happened. The IRGC are now even more popular than
before, basking in their front-line status against the "great Satan". And
political moderates are unhappy with yet another unwise US move that provides a
political bonanza for their competition.
Having said that, it is an error to say that the entire IRGC consists of
ideological zealots and hardliners, given that most of its rank and file
supported moderate former president Mohammad Khatami in his re-election bid six
years ago. But the likely net result of the terrorist labeling will be to tilt
the majority of IRGC members and their families and friends toward more
militant tendencies.
10. Wrong in international law: As mentioned above, the
designation does not not fit well with the UN's definition of terrorism. And it
raises serious questions in terms of the UN charter, which calls on member
states to resolve disputes through "pacific settlement".
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping
Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author
of
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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