August 15, 2007 (LPAC) -- In furtherance of Dick Cheney's buildup for an attack on Iran, the Bush Administration is planning to declare Iran's largest military branch, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, to be a foreign terrorist organization. The planned "terrorist" designation is reported by both the New York Times and the Washington Post today.

Last week, as LPAC reported, McClatchy Newspapers reported that Cheney has been proposing to launch air strikes against training camps run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard, on the pretext that Quds is training and arming Shi'ite militia groups and insurgents in Iraq, and is also arming the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a "specially designated global terrorist" organization would be made under Executive Order 13224, issued shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and would enable the U.S. to block bank accounts and other assets controlled by the Guard. There are probably no such accounts or assets in the United States, but the Administration will use this to pressure Europeans and others to cut off financial ties to Iran worldwide.

The planned move runs counter to any effort to open up diplomatic communications with Iran, says nuclear proliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, as quoted in the Washington Post. "It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue," Cirincione says, adding that it "will convince many in Iran's elite that there's no point in talking with us, and that the only thing that will satisfy us is regime change."

That is, of course, what Cheney is demanding. The New York Times coverage today notes that "aides to Vice President Dick Cheney [are] said to be among those pushing for greater consideration of military options," as opposed to diplomacy.

Executive Intelligence Review and LPAC have been warning for months that Cheney's circles are likely to stage a new "Gulf of Tonkin" incident as a pretext to justify a military attack on Iran.