5th Fleet Focus: The Day of Escalation With Iran

The Navy has been preparing itself to fight swarm tactics, small boat terrorists, and other asymmetrical threats since 9/11. I hope they are ready, because it appears the Bush administration is about to rattle some cages in Iran, specifically targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials describe as the group's growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guards will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It identifies individuals, businesses, charities and many extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guards would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."

I'm going to leave the politics out of this one. No doubt some will say the IRGC isn't as bad as the US government is saying, I'll dismiss them as ignorant fools with no concept of who these people are. There is no legitimate defense in the kind of crime these people are involved in, unless you support murder, slavery, and the black market arms trade. With that said, I'll refrain from further moral and political judgment on the decision itself.

This decision is designed to produce one of two results, either put a vice grip on operations originating from Iran, or provoke an asymmetrical military response from the IRGC that can be pinned on Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a major player in virtually all aspects of Iranian trade, legitimate and otherwise, and that is by design to insure they have freedom of operation. They fund numerous regional terrorist organizations, but the fronts for this activity are legitimate businesses that bring goods otherwise unavailable to the people of Iran. This type of economic warfare will effect John and Jane Doe Iranian citizen.

Strategically speaking, this places enormous pressure on the US Navy in the Persian Gulf. The strongest, most dangerous naval force in the Middle East isn't any state Navy, rather the enormous 1500+ small, fast, up-armed boat fleet supported by mini-submarines operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. It shouldn't need to be said, but the IRCG has access to the fourth largest sea mine inventory in the world, and almost certainly has the technical expertise and equipment provisions to utilize it.

I hope the US is ready, because there will almost certainly be blowback when this takes place, and not just from the IRGC against the US directly. I imagine there are some very wealthy people in the UAE thinking long and hard regarding the position the US is putting them in, forcing them into a business decision that may even carry with it dangerous physical consequences.