U.S. Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran Guards – New York Times:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.
In other words, the government of Iran will be officially designated as a terrorist organization, a decision that has myriad consequences and will probably limit diplomatic solutions to the current crisis.
hate to break it to you, but the Iranian government is already on the American list of “state sponsors of terrorism”:
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/c14151.htm
I am not 100% sure, but i think this basically makes subsequent Iranian government institutions also state sponsors of terrorism by default. There may be a couple specific motivations for labeling the RG a terrorist org (maybe publicity or looking like the USA is doing something…) but i doubt that it has any practical significance.
My guess is that this was done as a response to Tom Lantos’ pressure to take practical steps against Iran. as you probably know, Lantos is the chair of the house foreign relations committee and an uber-zionist middle east hawk.
Here is his policy on iran:
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/lantos030607.htm
so, i guess that bush was responding to the Lantos/AIPAC efforts by providing a symbolic measure that would ease the pressure without changing policy. There has been talk about Cheney urging an attack against iran, but it is hard to say how serious that really is, and also whether the military is even stupid enough do a war with iran without significant new realities (like a more pressing reason).