  We study the origin of non-analyticity in \alpha_s of a short-distance QCD
observable to demonstrate that the infrared renormalons, the same-sign
factorial growth of the perturbative expansion, is a universal phenomenon that
originates entirely from the small coupling domain. In particular, both the
position and the nature of the singularity of the Borel transform of the
perturbative series prove to be independent of whether the running coupling
\alpha(k^2) becomes singular at some finite scale ("Landau pole"), or stays
finite down to k^2=0. We argue that getting hold of the infrared renormalons
per se can help next to nothing in quantifying non-perturbative effects.
