Iran Speaker Threatens To Respond 'In Kind' If Europe Lists IRGC

Speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has criticized the motion passed by the European Parliament to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

Ghalibaf speaking on Friday said that “If the European Union makes such a decision and lists the Guards as a terrorist organization, it means that the European Union acts as a supporter of terrorism, because the IRGC is the biggest and most successful” anti-terrorist entity.

Ghalibaf was a senior IRGC officer before officially becoming a politician and close friend of Qassem Soleimani who led Iran's military interventions in regional countries.

Ghalibaf was referring to what Iranian officials often claim was the IRGC’s key role in defeating the Islamic State group in Iran and Syria.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard intervened in the Syrian civil war to assist the government of Bashar al-Assad against the opposition in 2011, years before ISIS emerged as a threat.

In Iraq, many argue, Iran’s program to create Shiite militia forces predated the emergence of ISIS and played a role in inflaming Sunni resentment in the first place.

Although these militias did fight against ISIS, but the determining factor was the role the United States and an international coalition played by air support, weapons and training to the Iraqi army to defeat the extremist Sunni group.

Ghalibaf accused the West of creating and financing ISIS, which without IRGC’s intervention would have attacked London and Paris, he argued. He did not explain why ISIS would have attacked Europe if the West created it.

He threatened that if the European Parliament’s resolution adopted January 19 becomes a final decision by the EU, the Iranian parliament will retaliate “in kind.”