October 26, 2007
The Independent (UK)

U.S. Hits Iran With Toughest Sanctions Since 1979

by Leonard Doyle

The Bush administration has moved a step closer to military conflict with Iran, imposing punitive measures on its Revolutionary Guard Corps and calling the al-Quds unit of the guards a terrorist organisation.

Vladimir Putin immediately called the new US sanctions the work of a "madman with a razor blade in his hand". The Russian President said: "Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?"

The Guards' chief, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said: "Today, enemy has concentrated sharp point of its attacks on the Guards. As always, the corps is ready to defend the ideals of the revolution more than ever before."

The sanctions are the toughest measures against Tehran since the siege of the US embassy in 1979 under the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The US has never before in its history taken such measures against the armed forces of an independent government.

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced the new measures, saying they were meant "to confront the threatening behaviour of the Iranians".

The US was forced to act alone, however, with Britain only offering rhetorical support for unilateral action outside the United Nations Security Council. A plan to have gradually tightening UN sanctions is foundering following opposition from Russia and China. . . .

FULL TEXT

Tweet
Follow @wisdomfund

[AUDIO: Operation Ajax, as the plot was code-named, reshaped the history of Iran, the Middle East and the world. . . . inspired fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its protection.--"All The Shah's Men," OnPoint Radio, August 20, 2003]

Enver Masud, "Iran Has an 'Inalienable Right' to Nuclear Energy," The Wisdom Fund, January 16, 2006

John Pilger, "Iran: The War Begins," New Statesman, February 5, 2007

Jon Boyle, "Iran seen to need 3-8 yrs to produce bomb," Reuters, October 22, 2007

[Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.--Gidi Weitz and Na'ama Lanski, "Livni behind closed doors: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel," Haaretz, October 24, 2007]

[When the United States military command accused the Iranian Quds Force in January of providing the armor-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing US troops, it knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows.

The record also shows that the US command had considerable evidence that the Mahdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had received the technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah, rather than Iran.--Gareth Porter, "Explosive charge blows up in US's face," Asia Times, October 27, 2007]

Pepe Escobar, "'War on terror' is now war on Iran," Asia Times, October 27, 2007

Jitendra Joshi, "No evidence Iran is making nuclear weapons: ElBaradei," AFP, October 28, 2007

Gordon Prather, "Go Ahead On - Start WW III," antiwar.com, November 4, 2007

Frank Rich, "Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats' Defeat?," New York Times, November 4, 2007

[Even though compliance by Iran is the principal and only conclusion of the current IAEA report . . . the neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times don't even mention it in their "report" on the IAEA report!--Gordon Prather, "IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance," antiwar.com, November 17, 2007]

[The impact of the National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion - that Iran had halted a military program in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium, ostensibly for peaceful uses - will be felt in endless ways at home and abroad.--Steven Lee Myers, "An Assessment Jars a Foreign Policy Debate About Iran," New York Times, December 4, 2007]

[The new report upended years of previous assessments by asserting that the Islamic republic halted the weapons side of its nuclear program in 2003. The report, while expressing concern about Iran's rapidly growing civilian nuclear energy program, contradicted assertions by top Bush administration officials and previous intelligence assessments that Iran has been bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.--Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, "Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence On Iran," Washington Post, December 5, 2007]

"Oil Min: Iran Has Halted Oil Transactions In Dollars," AFP, December 8, 2007

Helene Cooper, "Iran Receives Nuclear Fuel in Blow to U.S.," New York Times, December 18, 2007

"RADIATING DANGER: THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS," Washington Post, December 2007

Uzi Mahnaimi, "Israel to brief George Bush on options for Iran strike," Sunday Times, January 6, 2008

VIDEO: "The Folly of Attacking Iran: Lessons from History," justforeignpolicy.org, February 11, 2008

"FACTBOX-New U.N. sanctions resolution on Iran," Reuters, March 3, 2008