Leaking the IRGC designation as a terror group on the eve of the SCO summit wasn’t connected in any of the media commentary. It is a warning that there will be an economic price (sanctions at a minimum) for those who get too close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
We don’t need any new designation to act in self-defense against Iran, but we would need this if we were to seek to choke off their suppliers who ship arms to Iran, who then transfers them to Iraq and Afganistan where they are used to kill our soldiers.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/08/opinion/main3146546.shtml
China’s Secret Arms Dealings
Aug. 8, 2007
(Weekly Standard) This column was written by John J. Tkacik, Jr..
(excerpted)
This year, many truckloads of small arms and explosives direct from Chinese government-owned factories to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been transshipped to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are used against American soldiers and Marines and NATO forces. Since April, according to a knowledgeable Bush administration official, “vast amounts” of Chinese-made large caliber sniper rifles, “millions of rounds” of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and “IED [improvised explosive device] components” have been convoyed from Iran into Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan. . .
According to sources who have seen the intel reports, the evidence of China-Iran arms deliveries is overwhelming. This is not a case of ambiguous intelligence. The intelligence points to Chinese government complicity in the Iranian shipments of Chinese small arms to Iraqi insurgents. . .
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless told the Financial Times on July 7 that the United States has “become increasingly alarmed that Chinese armor-piercing ammunition has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq.” The FT quoted one unnamed U.S. official as saying that the United States would like China to “do a better job of policing these sales,” as if China actually wanted to “police” its arms exports.
Lawless, revered in the Pentagon as a steely-eyed China skeptic, evinced less agnosticism to the FT, explaining that the country of origin was less important than who was facilitating the transfer. One might wonder why Beijing, as a matter of policy, would sell weapons to Iran for the clear purpose of killing American soldiers. “There is a great shortfall in our understanding of China’s intentions,” said Lawless of China’s overall military policies, and “when you don’t know why they are doing it, it is pretty damn threatening .... They leave us no choice but to assume the worst.” . . .
Thank you callmejoe.
Yep, our friends in China still running neck in neck with our friends in Russia — both trying to outdo our friends, the Saudis.
Then there’s Ahmadinejad et al running a proxy war....
Yeppers, interesting times.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2007/08/09/2007-08-09_bush_on_mortgage_woes_chinas_tbills-2.html
Bush on mortgage woes, China’s T-bills
Thursday, August 9th 2007, 4:00 AM
China would be “foolhardy” to sell the trillion dollars in federal bonds it holds, President Bush said yesterday.
In an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, the President scoffed at a report in the London Telegraph that the Chinese might consider the so-called nuclear option - selling off the notes that have helped financed the U.S. government’s huge deficit.
“Trying to do what? Trying to crater our economy?” Bush asked. “That would be foolhardy of them to do that.”
The report said China could divest - or use the threat to - in the face of possible trade sanctions.
Bush also weighed in on the subprime mortgage meltdown, pointedly disagreeing with a proposal from Sen. Clinton earlier this week to create a $1 billion federal fund for local and state programs that help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosures.
Bush told Cavuto the market, plus enforcement of lending laws already on the books, will make a federal bailout unnecessary.
“I think the focus ought to be on the individual homeowner,” Bush said, adding that troubled homeowners can refinance with the FHA. “ I think we ought to crack down predatory lending.
“And then I think we ought to let the market work.”
Staff and Wire Reports
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/18/iran.guard/
Iranian Guards vow to ‘punch’ U.S.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure and threatened to “punch” the U.S., in their first response to Washington’s plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported Saturday. Local press in the Iranian capital of Tehran quoted Revolutionary Guards leader Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi saying that he could understand Washington’s ire toward the group because of their “leverage” against the U.S.
“America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future,” he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Kayhan. “We will never remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our leverage against them.” There was no elaboration on what Safavi meant by the punch or the organization’s “leverage.” . . .
Iranian armed forces spokesman Gen. Ali Reza Afshar hit out precisely against this attempt to declare a state body terrorist in an editorial Saturday in the country’s largest circulation newspaper, calling it illegal. “America’s long time hostility against the Guard is clear and understandable, but this move against organization that is part of Iran’s armed forces is illegal,” he wrote in the daily Hamshahri. The estimated 200,000-strong Revolutionary Guards is an elite force separate from Iran’s regular military and has its own ground, naval and air units.