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On 29 January, the EU foreign ministers decided to classify the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists. The same day, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on her X account: “Repression cannot go unanswered. […] Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise.”
It was also decided to impose sanctions on certain individuals and organizations in Iran.
After reports that many thousands of people had been slaughtered in cold blood by the regime in connection with the popular protests, there was no longer any other morally defensible way to go.
The matter also includes the fact that the US has put strong pressure on the regime in Iran and that many realize that the current leadership has no future.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is now on the same list as IS, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and the PKK.
The organization was created back in 1979 in connection with the Iranian revolution and the purpose was to prevent future coup attempts against the ayatollahs.
It is interesting in this context that the American administration under Donald Trump has expressed a certain restraint in criticizing other countries’ systems of government. The West cannot keep telling others how they should live. Countries like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia will in any case not practice gender equality in military defense or write laws that guarantee homosexuals the same human rights as everyone else.
But here it is obvious that things have gone too far. When a corrupt regime, which has also exported its terror to other countries, murders its own population on a large scale because it takes to the streets and demands change, it suddenly becomes possible even for a divided EU to take a position that has at least symbolic significance.
Ursula von der Leyen praised the decision on X, saying it was “long overdue” and that ““Terrorist” is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood. Europe stands with the people of Iran in their brave fight for freedom.”
The EU has previously imposed sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard through asset freezes and travel bans. The terror listing therefore does not mean any major change in practice. But it is a clear political signal, says Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, for example.
“It is obvious that it is disturbing and that is good, because it must have an effect that such serious violence is being used against these demonstrators.
One who has long advocated that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard should be classified as a terrorist organization by the EU is the Swedish MEP and Sweden Democrat Charlie Weimers. The Sweden Democrats have long had broad support among the Iranian diaspora in Sweden. In other European countries, too, parties that have taken a clear stance against Islamism and thus against the Iranian regime, which has often supported the Islamist movements in Europe in various ways, have gained great popularity among the Iranian diaspora.
And what legitimizes the EU taking this step more than anything else is the fact that the Iranian regime has been so active outside its own borders. It is no secret that the Iranians probably pushed Hamas when it came to the October 7 attack. It is also no secret that they have financed Hezbollah.
They have also acted against Iranian refugees in several countries and threatened Israeli interests worldwide.
The Iranian regime will not fall because the EU makes a symbolic decision. But it is significant in any case. The Iranian people deserve something better than an Islamic terrorist state.
And it is not only in the interest of the Iranians that their executioners lose power. It is in the interest of the entire world.