Iran on Thursday threatened “dangerous consequences” after the European Union formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization amid rising tensions between Iran and the West.
EU foreign ministers approved the designation at a meeting in Brussels, describing it as a response to Iran’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests.
“Repression cannot go unanswered,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Karas wrote in announcing the decision, referring to X. “A regime that kills thousands of its own citizens is working towards its own demise.”
The designation would put the Revolutionary Guards on the same terrorist list as al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State, Karas said. “If you act like a terrorist, you should be treated as one too.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed a similar opinion. “‘Terrorist’ is exactly what we call a regime that bloodyly suppresses the protests of its own people,” she said.
In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran’s military chief of staff called the EU’s decision “illogical, irresponsible and mean-spirited” and accused European leaders of acting in obedience to US and Israeli policy.
The statement asserted that the Revolutionary Guards have played a central role in the fight against extremists, including the Islamic State, and warned that “the dangerous consequences of this hostile and provocative decision will fall directly on European policymakers.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused European governments of escalating tensions and increasing the risk of a wider Middle East war.
“Europe is rather busy fanning the flames,” Arraguchi wrote to X. Several countries are working to avoid all-out war in the region, but European countries are not among them, he claimed.
He said the designation of the Revolutionary Guards was a “serious strategic mistake” made at the behest of the United States and warned that Europe would suffer serious consequences, including soaring energy prices, if conflict broke out.
Formed in 1979 after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Revolutionary Guards operates separately from the rest of Iran’s military and has its own army, navy, air force, intelligence services, and special forces branches. Its role is to maintain the Islamic Republic, and it reports directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Revolutionary Guards are estimated to deploy between 150,000 and 190,000 troops, including an elite expeditionary force known as the Quds Force, which was separately designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2007.
Additionally, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards called the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary militia, has an estimated 450,000 members and plays a key role in suppressing anti-government protests, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
The Revolutionary Guards were designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the United States in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term. At the time, the U.S. accused Iran of killing 608 U.S. military personnel in Iraq between 2003 and 2011 at the hands of so-called “Revolutionary Guard agents.”
The Iranian government has announced a significant expansion of its military forces as the United States threatens to attack Iran for the second time since June. IRNA claimed on Thursday that Iran had added 1,000 “strategic drones” to its military stockpile, but it remains unclear what types of drones were added.
The country also announced that its Revolutionary Guards Navy will conduct live-fire exercises next week in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil and most of the world’s liquefied natural gas flows.
Analysts say the EU’s designation of the Revolutionary Guards as terrorists is largely symbolic. “This measure has very little impact,” Trita Parsi, deputy director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible States, told CNN. “Europe already has very little trade with Iran. We had no intention of increasing trade. We had no intention of becoming an intermediary.”
Parsi noted that similar measures have failed to change Iran’s behavior, noting that “here we are on the brink of war” even though the United States has long designated the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
The designation comes amid rising tensions in the region and fresh warnings from Washington. President Trump has threatened to attack Iran unless it signs what he calls a “fair” nuclear deal.
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the country should “prepare for a state of war,” adding: “If war is imposed, we will defend ourselves and the end of the war will not be on the enemy’s side,” according to IRNA.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has stressed that military options are firmly on the table if diplomacy fails.
“When President Trump said we wouldn’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon, we wouldn’t have a nuclear bomb, he meant it,” Hegseth said at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. “We are ready to implement whatever the president expects from the Department of the Army,” he added.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday urged the parties to engage in diplomacy to reduce tensions and “avoid a crisis that could have devastating consequences for the region.”
