Iran’s 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guards on Thursday dismissed Washington’s plan to designate the corps as a terrorist group.

    A spokesman, identified as Javani, said that the economic and financial sanctions imposed by the US would only strengthen Guards. He observed that Washington had been plotting against Iran’s Islamic regime for 27 years but the Revolutionary Guards would continue defending it against external subversion.

Once the Guards are branded a terrorist group, the US would put pressure on its own and foreign financial institutions to boycott dealings with the hundreds of Iranian firms and enterprises, including in the energy sector, which are owned by or linked to the Guards. The Bush Administratoin’s declared aim is to compel Iran to suspend its nuclear programme and cease supporting Iraqi Shia militants, Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement and the Palestinian Hamas.

The Guards were created as an elite force after the ouster of the Shah in 1979 to protect the Islamic Revolution. But the Guards did not remain a small force with a limited role. The corps created naval and air wings to complement the army, became involved in business ventures and began playing a major role in political life. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is a former Guards officer, was the corps’ candidate in the 2005 election and has appointed its members to cabinet positions.

Gary Sick, a leading US analyst of Iranian policy, is of the view that branding the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group would not give the Bush administration more leverage on Tehran than it already had.

“The US has for many years formally designated Iran as the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism. In that context, the US has placed sanctions on a wide variety of institutions and individuals... including the (Guards) and some of its ‘business’ enterprises.” He pointed out that the US had also organised action against Iran’s banks with the aim of denying credit to the Islamic nation.

Sick says the proposed move has three purposes: impress Congress that the Administration is tackling Iran and its “meddling” in Iraq; demonstrate to Sunni Arabs that the US sees Shia Iran as the common enemy in West Asia; and put Iran on the defensive in Iraq.