The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The move is ostensibly to enable Washington to target the elite military branch’s vast business network and foreign companies that have dealings with it.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc), which has its own ground, naval and air units, operates independent of Iran’s regular military. It was created in 1979 to protect the new Islamic regime and has since become a powerful political and economic force in its own right, heavily involved in Iran’s oil and nuclear industries, among others. Through the Guards, Tehran has armed and financially supported such terrorist entities as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A U.S. official, who remained anonymous, says Washington has not yet decided whether to apply the “specially designated global terrorist” label to the Revolutionary Guards as a whole, or just the Quds Force, its foreign operations arm, which has been directly involved in supporting Shiite terrorists in Iraq who have killed American soldiers.

The threat to move against the Revolutionary Guards is seen by many observers as a potential stumbling block to further talks between the U.S. and Iran over the future of Iraq. However, it appears the move is closely tied in with those negotiations. Stratfor reports that the threat, leaked to the Washington Post, “is an intentional message to Iran.”

“The thought of designating the irgc as a terrorist organization has been floating in the U.S. Congress for some time now,” Stratfor writes, “but Washington has a clear purpose in sending strong hints to Iran that the decision is imminent at this stage of the Iraq negotiations” (August 15). According to Stratfor,

The message is this: We are not content with your negotiating position, and if you think you are the only side that can ratchet up the level of pain in this situation, you are wrong.

Why, after months and years of the irgc being directly involved in supporting terrorism, would America consider designating it “terrorist” right now? Could it be that it is feeling the pressure in its negotiations with Iran over Iraq? No doubt it is trying to prevent Tehran from gaining the upper hand—which, by virtue of the very fact that the U.S. is seeking its cooperation, it likely already has.

How successful such a move will be is debatable in any case. The United States has for some time been trying to get the international community to isolate Iran, with limited success. Being continually blocked in the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. has sought to pressure individual countries and businesses. Recently, it made some progress in coercing some European financial institutions to sever their ties with Iran, and Iran is feeling the effects, but the U.S. still does not enjoy broad support in this area.

Unless Europe, as well as China and Russia, support the U.S. move to isolate the Guards, say some experts, it will be extremely difficult for the Revolutionary Guard’s funding to be cut off. “The Guards have an impressive financial and commercial network outside Iran,” said Mahan Abedin, director of research at the Center for the Study of Terrorism, an independent London-based organization. The terror designation, he said, “might pass in the States, but it will be resisted very strongly in countries where companies are making money with Iran.” He suspects the listing will be resisted particularly by Germany and France, which have dealings with Guards companies.

Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian political analyst, said a terror listing would not significantly impact Iran. “Iran has adjusted its system based on the past sanctions,” he said.

Though by targeting the Guards, the U.S. would have a further tool at its disposal to pressure foreign businesses and banks to cut ties with Iran, it would hardly be surprising if the move didn’t have as much impact as Washington would like. After all, Iran has been on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984—and as such is now being engaged by U.S. officials in official, high-level dialogue. Hardly a precedent for U.S. threats to be taken seriously.

We will yet see how Tehran will react. Certainly, Iran knows that Washington is lacking in international support and will keep pushing—in Iraq, and elsewhere.