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Eurasia
April 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
TEHRAN BLOG: “Dangerous and disingenuous” – Is Trump building a case for war with Iran?
bne IntelliNews
A former top US State Department official
is among experts concerned that the Trump administration’s unprecedented designation of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) — which takes effect on April 15 — is part of a plan to lay the groundwork for strikes on Iranian forces, especially in Iraq or Syria where Iranian forces might encounter US troops.
“One of the reasons why this action occurred could be because there’s an actual interest
to do things directly against the IRGC,” Jason Blazakis, who served as the director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office from 2008 to 2018, was quoted as saying by ABC News on April 14.
While the designation doesn’t provide
legal authority itself, it could be part of the administration’s argument, Blazakis added. Critics are concerned that the uber-hawkish White House may be planning to stretch or bend the law to the limit to claim US legal authority for strikes on Iranian forces.
“I am troubled that the administration can’t unequivocally say that you haven’t been given power. I can tell you explicitly, you have not been given power or authority by Congress to have war with Iran,” Republican Senator Rand Paul, told US Secretary of State Pompeo on April 10.
In response, Pompeo refused to rule out whether the US Authorization for the Use of Military Force
Iranian MPs wore IRGC uniforms to parliament in a show of support for the Guard after it was designated "terrorist" by the US.
(AUMF) authorised military action against Iran or the IRGC, telling Paul: “I’d prefer just leave that to the lawyers.”
Tess Bridgeman, who served as deputy legal adviser to President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, told CBS: "The Trump administration seems to be priming the public for an argument that the 2001 AUMF covers Iran."
The AUMF, passed by Congress on September 14, 2001, gives the executive branch broad authority to use force “against those nations, organizations, or persons” that it determines “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” on 9/11 “or harbored such organizations or persons.”
Majority-Shia Iran has always pointed out that al Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim terror group and that al Qaeda and some of its affiliates have even conducted numerous terror attacks on Iran, including a February attack in Iran’s southeast claimed by a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist group that killed at least 27 IRGC soldiers.
However, the Trump administration is busy attempting to draw a clear link between Iran and al Qaeda. In its announcement on the FTO designation, the State Department said one reason for the move was that “Iran continues to allow al Qaeda operatives to reside in Iran, where they have been able to move money and fighters to South Asia and Syria”.
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