Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, said on Sunday that a bill had been prepared to designate US military forces as terrorists.
Earlier, he pledged that if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are blacklisted by the US as a terrorist group, Tehran would respond in kind and “put that country’s military on the terror blacklist besides Daesh*”.
“If Americans make this mistake and put the IRGC in their terror list, this double-urgency bill will be approved in the Iranian Parliament,” Falahatpisheh pointed out.
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Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that those US officials, who advocate IRGC blacklisting, "seek to drag the US into a quagmire".
"#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 the US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account. "@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster."
The remarks came after the Wall Street Journal reported that Washington may blacklist the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation. The decision is expected to be announced on 8 April and if taken, the move would be the first time the US has officially blacklisted another county's military as terrorists.
The decision to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation was made by the Secretary of State, the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury; it will become policy if the US Congress doesn't block their decision.
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The blacklisting of the IRGC, however, may result in a US appeals court being called upon to review the designation.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been running high since US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and vowed to reinstate all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in May 2018.
#Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia and a number of other countries