Iranian Guards Are Terrorists, Us to Declare

The Bush administration is preparing to ramp up its confrontation with Iran by declaring part or all of the country's Revolutionary Guard a "global terrorist" organisation and targeting its extensive financial interests.

The move is extremely provocative, given that the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard Corps is an integral part of the state rather than a group outside the law. It has its own navy, air force, and ground troops, as well as specialist wings.

The Bush administration is trying to force Iran to abandon what the US claims is its ambition to build a nuclear bomb, and to end its support for Hizbullah, Hamas and other groups in the Middle East. "We are confronting Iranian behavior across a variety of different fronts, on a number of different battlefields, if you will," said Sean McCormack, the state department spokesman. He would not comment on the Revolutionary Guard because he did not want to give them a heads-up, or advance notice, on any sanctions.

The plan is the first concrete illustration of a shift in balance from the "doves" in the Bush administration - Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Robert Gates, the defence secretary - to the "hawks" around Dick Cheney, the vice-president, who has expressed frustration over a lack of progress by diplomats and supports eventual military action. The labeling of the Revolutionary Guard is a concession by Ms Rice and Mr Gates to Mr Cheney.

The plan is at an advanced stage: Ms Rice has informed the foreign secretary, David Miliband, of the US intention.

White House, state department and Treasury officials refused to comment publicly yesterday. The Iranian foreign ministry dismissed the suggestion of sanctions as "propaganda and psychological operations".

Throughout the year the Bush administration has been intensifying its pressure on Iran, a policy that included the dispatch of a second carrier group to the Gulf. Iran's commander-in-chief, Yahya Rahim Safavi, shrugged off the US build-up yesterday, saying: "Our coast-to-sea missile systems can now reach the breadth and length of the Gulf and Oman Sea, and no warships can pass in the Gulf without being in range of our coast-to-sea missiles."

The Revolutionary Guard has an economic portfolio which includes ownership, or part-ownership, of oil companies, hotels, and other businesses.

The White House claims the Revolutionary Guard has been sending sophisticated explosives and other weapons to Iraq, and arming the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ms Rice has still to formally approve the labeling of part or all the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. The label could be applied solely to the Revolutionary Guard special unit, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, which has been accused by Washington of involvement in Iraq, rather than the whole organisation.

The designation would mean the US regarding the Revolutionary Guard as having "committed" or posing "a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or the economy of the United States".

As well as putting pressure on Iran, the plan is aimed at influencing the United Nations security council, where China and to a lesser extent Russia are resisting further sanctions against Iran.

The Bush administration is warning the security council that, if it is not prepared to shift, then the US is prepared to act unilaterally. Ms Rice's delay in labeling the Revolutionary Guard is partly to give the security council an opportunity in which to act.