Iran worried about IRGC terror blacklist
Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried about the prospects of European countries targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and it’s showing. The concern can be seen in recent rhetoric in Iran’s media and also in statements by members of the regime.
Iran now knows that the IRGC could be targeted for sanctions – not only by the US but also in Europe – and this will make it more difficult for the IRGC to use front companies to exploit loopholes abroad. Iran’s export of drones to Russia and Russia’s use of those drones to terrorize people in Ukraine has helped tip the scales against Iran in Europe.
Evidence has shown that numerous parts of the drones were manufactured in the West and exported to Iran via complex networks of Iranian front companies that did not appear to have any military uses until now.
According to Iran International, a media site critical of the regime, “the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the parliament speaker threatened Europe on Saturday that listing the IRGC a terror group will bring consequence[s].”
Meanwhile, pro-Iran media Fars and Tasnim News ran similar articles bashing the EU. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said that “the enemies[’] actions against the IRGC are doomed to failure,” the news outlets reported.
He added: “No army and no armed forces have done more than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to fight terrorism and reduce the evil of terrorists in the region.” This tells us that Iran knows the West is seeking to label the IRGC a terrorist group, so it is trying to present this as ironic, noting that the IRGC has fought terrorism. From the Iranian regime’s point of view, the IRGC helped fight ISIS – thus, it has fought terrorism.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, slammed the European
parliament’s recent vote condemning the IRGC. Ghalibaf claimed the EU was now involved in a “pro-Zionism” trend: “I must clarify that after the extensive and long sanctions that the Western front, especially the US, has imposed against the Iranian people, such actions will not have any serious legal effects, and the pro-Zionism trend is more about creating a media space to intimidate the Iranian people,” he said.
Ghalibaf stated that any action against the IRGC, including sanctions or inclusion in imaginary lists such as “so-called terrorist groups,” is an insult to the entire Iranian nation: “We observe a dangerous trend in the group of Western countries, especially Europeans, towards terrorist behaviors and support for terrorism against the Iranian nation, which can lead to Iran deciding on a range of countermeasures.”
He then threatened that Iran would treat European countries and their forces in the Middle East as “terrorists” if the IRGC is sanctioned in Europe. This is the same threat that Iran made against US Central Command after the Trump administration sanctioned the IRGC, following that threat upping targeted attacks against the US forces in Iraq and Syria.
“We are ready to reciprocate,” Ghalibaf added. “But we ask the Westerners to think carefully so that the window of opportunity for diplomacy is not closed. On the one hand, they cannot claim that the doors of negotiations are open, and on the other hand, they cannot officially confront a part of the political structure and identity belonging to the Iranian people.”
Iran’s officials are now being encouraged in this line of rhetoric; they are also being told to accuse Europe of being controlled by “Zionists.” But Iran doesn’t realize that its supply of drones to Russia is what has caused the IRGC to be put in a new spotlight.
It remains to be seen if Iran will retaliate and how.