rferl.org – The U.S. military would lose the security it enjoyed in west Asia if the United States designates the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari warned on April 7.
“With this stupidity, the American army and security forces will no longer have today’s calm in the west Asia region,” Jafari was quoted as saying by the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency.
Earlier, Iranian deputies said they will take reciprocal action
against the United States if Washington designates the IRGC as a
terrorist group.
“We will answer any action taken against [the IRGC] with a reciprocal
action,” said a statement signed by 255 of the 290 Iranian
parliamentarians, the state news agency IRNA reported on April 7.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on April 7 that U.S. officials aiming to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group wanted to “drag the U.S. into a quagmire” on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account. “@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster.”
U.S. media are reporting that the United States will soon designate
the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization, which would be the first time
Washington has given that label to the military unit of another
country.
The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, citing U.S. officials, reported on
April 5 that Washington could add the IRGC on its Foreign Terrorist
Organizations (FTOs) list as early as April 8. Such a move has been
speculated upon for several years.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has promoted the change by
Washington as part of a tougher stance toward Iran by the administration
of President Donald Trump.
The United States has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people
for affiliations with the IRGC, but the organization as a whole is not.
“So the leaders of America, who themselves are the creators and
supporters of terrorists in the [Middle East] region, will regret this
inappropriate and idiotic action,” the parliament deputies’ statement
read.
IRGC commander Jafari also warned in 2017 that if the Trump
administration designated the IRGC a terror group “then the
Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic
State all around the world.”
The IRGC — which has forces totaling some 100,000 personnel — was
created after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite system
of clerical rule and is Iran’s most powerful security organization,
controlling big portions of the Iranian economy while wielding strong
political influence.
It also runs Tehran’s ballistic missile programs, according to the Congressional Research Service.