Iran threatened Thursday to unleash “hazardous consequences” after the European Union formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Western powers.
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 Kallas wrote on X in announcing the decision. “Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise.”
The designation places the IRGC on the same terrorist list as al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State group, Kallas said. “If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shared the sentiment. “‘Terrorist’ is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood,” she said.
In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the General Staff of the Iranian armed forces called the EU’s decision “illogical, irresponsible and spiteful,” accusing European leaders of acting in obedience to U.S. and Israeli policies.
The statement claimed the IRGC has played a central role in combating extremist groups, including the Islamic State, and warned that “hazardous consequences of this hostile and provocative decision will fall directly on the 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 instead busy fanning the flames,” Araghchi wrote on X. Several countries are working to avert all-out war in the region, but European states are not among them, he argued.
He described the IRGC designation as a “major strategic mistake” made at the behest of the United States and warned that Europe would suffer severe consequences if conflict erupts, including a surge in energy prices.
Formed in 1979 in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the IRGC operates separately from the rest of the Iranian armed forces and has its own army, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces branches. Its role is to preserve the Islamic Republic, and it reports directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The IRGC is estimated to field between 150,000 and 190,000 troops, including an elite expeditionary unit known as the Quds Force that was separately designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 2007.
In addition, an IRGC branch called the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, has an estimated 450,000 members, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War, and plays a key role in suppressing anti-government protests.
The Revolutionary Guard was previously designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the United States in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term. The US at that time blamed Iran for the deaths of 608 American service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011 at the hands of what it called the “IRGC’s proxies.”
Against the backdrop of US threats to strike Iran for the second time since June, Tehran has announced a significant expansion of its military capabilities. Iran claimed it has added 1,000 “strategic drones” to its military stockpile, IRNA reported Thursday, though it remains unclear what types of drones were added.
The country also announced that IRGC naval forces will carry out live-fire exercises next week in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil and large share of liquefied natural gas flow.
Analysts say the EU’s terrorist designation of the IRGC is largely symbolic. “This measure will have very little impact,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN. “Europe already has almost no trade with Iran. It was not about to have more trade. It was not about to be a mediator.”
Parsi noted that similar measures have failed to alter Iranian behavior, pointing out that the United States has long listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization, yet “here we are on the verge of war.”
The designation comes amid heightened regional tensions and renewed warnings from Washington. Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it does not sign what he has called an “equitable” nuclear deal.
Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said his country should “be prepared for a state of war,” according to IRNA, adding that “if it is imposed upon us, we will defend ourselves, and the end of the war will not be with the enemies.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth underscored that military options remain firmly on the table if diplomacy fails.
“When President Trump said we’re not getting a nuclear Iran, you won’t have a nuclear bomb, he meant it,” Hegseth said during a Cabinet meeting Thursday. “We will be prepared to deliver whatever this president expects of the War Department,” he added.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday urged the parties to engage in diplomacy to de-escalate the tensions and “avoid a crisis that could have devastating consequences in the region.”
