Iranian Army Unit Classified as “Global Terrorist”

Reporting today leads with the notion that this is the first time the military of a sovereign nation has been classified as a terrorist organization. According the the Uniited Nations ...

"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought"

My immediate thought when the news was breaking this morning was "can they do that?" Can you legally declare another nations conscripted military forces a terrorist organization? Could the Iranians respond and declare CIA SAD officers terrorists?

Pete DeMarco:
Fair point. War Crimes isn't the right term for attacks on ANC activists inside South Africa (Direct action in other countries could qualify as an act of war or even a war crime depending on the exact circumstances). I'd classify that as traditional oppression or human rights violations.

I make a distinction between oppression and terrorism for what I admit are fairly cold-blooded practical reasons. Reducing oppression is a worthwhile goal, but one that many states are unlikely to sign on to. Terrorism is a bit easier to get agreement on because it's by actors outside the traditional state system and thus actors not protected by sovereignty. (This division is unfair to wold-be countries trying to break away from imperial domination, but with the end of traditional European colonialism, I'm less concerned about that injustice). We also do have a range of tools for dealing with oppression/human rights violations and I think we do better either employing or strengthening those tools than lumping the problem in with terrorism.

Anyhow, I think this is a moot point for our present discussion. I don't think that the Bush administration is going to start calling all human rights abusing militaries terrorists. Similarly, I don't think the IRGC made the list for crimes against Iranians so much as actions in Iran.

Robin Wright was on NPR this morning stating that the IRGC categorization opens certain diplomatic avenues that were otherwise not available to the Bush administration. However, considering the use of the 'war on terror' as a carte blanche justification for military intervention, doesn't this also create a situation where the U.S. military could engage the IRGC - even entering Iranian territory to do so? Over the past few years, it seems the Bush administration has been maneuvering to legally engage Iran militarily and the IRGC categorization seems like another tactic to that end.